If the mark of a true movie star is to possess an identifiable persona, Nicolas Cage is nothing if not a movie star. Brooding, edgy, vulnerable, a little dangerous, his image is immediately recognisable: it has the kind of familiarity that makes people feel they know him.
That Cage should be a movie star should have surprised nobody. Born Nicolas Coppola, Cage is the nephew of legendary movie director Francis Ford Coppola. Nicolas grew up in a fairly middle-class existence in Los Angeles, but spent summers with his uncle in San Francisco, in a decidedly more opulent environment. His mother suffered from severe depression, and Nicolas and his two older brothers were raised largely by their father.
Cage hated school and dropped out in high school. He went to work in acting immediately, landing a few small television and film roles. He changed his name because he did not want his association with his famous uncle to give him an unfair advantage.
An over-the-top performance in 1986's Peggy Sue Got Married - a performance roundly criticised - intrigued Cher to the point that she lobbied hard for him to win a starring role in 1987's Moonstruck. It would be the role that put Cage on the Hollywood map.
But afterwards, although industry anticipation was high, Cage spent the next six or so years in a series of unmemorable films. Some were small films and well reviewed, such as Red Rock West in 1993. Others were simply flops. Hollywood wondered what had happened to the young actor with so much potential.
And then came Leaving Las Vegas in 1995. It was a critical hit and a modest box-office success - surprising, considering it was one of the darkest portrayals of a suicidal alcoholic on film. It won Cage a Best Actor Oscar. What would he do now?
Again confounding expectations that he might concentrate on smaller, "actors' " films, he took on three consecutive action films - The Rock opposite Sean Connery, Con Air, and Face Off opposite John Travolta. All three were big Hollywood movies, clearly aimed at box-office success. All three struck the mark.
In that genre also comes Snake Eyes, Cage's new movie directed by Brian De Palma, a thriller set in a casino in Atlantic City.
With Cage as a glad-handing, bribe-taking, loudly dressed local police detective, the movie is about a political assassination that occurs during a heavyweight boxing match. The New York Times called it "a great big juicy gob of apocalyptic paranoia". American moviegoers called it . . . well, nothing. Few saw it. The movie has been a box-office flop in the US, hurt by word-of-mouth tales that its plot was preposterous and its characters cartoonish.
Regardless of how he felt about the movie, Cage and co-star Gary Sinise did their obligatory "press junket" in Los Angeles. These events are usually held in a local hotel - this one was in the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. A large group of journalists was ushered in and divided up into litters of seven to 12.
One by one the cast members came in, sat down and talked to each group for 15 minutes or so. Cage, intense but not enthusiastic, came in wearing blue jeans and a brown T-shirt. Mostly he talked of his delight in working with director Brian De Palma. Clearly, Cage knew Snake Eyes was not an actor's movie.
"Brian is equally devoted to the camera as well as acting. It's 5050. He's a throwback of sorts as to his knowledge of film. His Hitchcockian tones are evident in his work. He's a master weaver. He's also an intuitive director," Cage said.
After a few more comments, he was off. His co-stars did their thing. Soon the event was over and the journalists filed out to the elevator to leave the hotel. There in the lift stood a surprised Helena Bonham Carter in a bathrobe, fresh from the swimming pool. Clearly she had no idea a movie press briefing had been going on upstairs. Now she was trapped in a elevator with reporters. After responding to one question that yes, the pool was great, she gratefully darted out on her floor as the elevator doors mercifully opened.