Longlegs star Maika Monroe has previously revealed that she only saw Nicolas Cage in full makeup as the titular killer for the first time when she entered the room to film their first (and only?) scene together, and Neon has cleverly incorporated this moment into the movie's marketing.
In this behind-the-scenes clip, Monroe walks through the door to interview Cage's Longlegs, and we hear her heart rate spike dramatically as she approaches the table he's sitting at.
Cage's full visage is blacked out, and director Osgood Perkins spoke about the effect of keeping the actor's "transformation" hidden during a recent interview with THR.
“The first day that he came onto set, it was a relatively young crew in Vancouver who hadn’t seen really anything like that — I mean no one has really seen anything like what Nick is like in this movie. Certainly walking onto the set with him on the first day, I walked him onto set so I was able to watch everybody’s look, and it was really impressive. He’s an icon, he’s one of the great movie stars of all time, and then he’s this monster on top of it. It was a lot to handle.”
“For the first couple of days, he was pretty much in his own self, keeping to himself, he didn’t want to hang out or have lunch," Perkins added. "He spoke to me — and in between takes he spoke to me as Nicolas Cage; I didn’t have to deal with any sort of Method acting bullshit where you can’t reach the actor. … It wasn’t like that, it was him — he’s just very focused and he means what he does.”
Check out the clip at the link below, and let us know if you plan on seeing Longlegs when it hits theaters this weekend.
“FBI Agent Lee Harker (Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer (Cage). As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.”
Nicolas Cage is also on board as a producer along with his production company Saturn Films (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Pig), Dan Kagan (Significant Other), Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious), Dave Caplan (The End We Start From) and Chris Ferguson (Child’s Play).
Longlegs is rated R for “Bloody violence, disturbing images and some language," and also stars Alicia Witt (The Walking Dead) and Blair Underwood (American Crime Story).
The movie is set to hit theaters on July 12.