We recently learned that Nicolas Cage is playing a new survivor in asymmetrical competitive horror game Dead by Daylight, and today Cage himself showed up on stage at the Summer Game Fest showcase to talk about his role.
“I play this heightened, exaggerated version of a film actor named Nic Cage,” he told Summer Game Fest host Geoff Keighley to laughs from the audience, “and he’s going to a location thinking he’s making a movie, and instead he wakes up in The Fog. And in The Fog he’s surrounded by crows and serial killers, and it’s rather amusing.”
As for why Cage chose to appear in his first videogame, he had several reasons. One, he appreciated that Sadako Yamamura of The Ring novels and movies appears in the game, and he likes that, for the survivors, it’s a cooperative “bonding experience.” He’s got a fan in the family, too, and said that he saw acting for the game as an “adventure.”
“Someone very important in my family is a Dead by Daylight enthusiast, and that really put the hook in—hah—pun intended,” said Cage. “See, Dead by Daylight to me was an opportunity to branch out. I’ve never been invited to this space before, and I’m always looking for new adventures, so this to me was, ‘Wow, I can meet a whole new audience and branch out and go on this Dead by Daylight adventure.’ It took me nothing but a split second to say yes.”
My favorite Cage comment from his appearance, however, is the actor’s point of view on recording the voice lines for his first game character.
“See, I want you to know when you’re playing the Nic Cage survivor, I want you to know that we’re one, that we’re fused,” said Cage. “So it was important to me that everything I do, everything I say, from the scream to the grunt, down to the most minimal, exasperated expression of a sigh, whatever it is, it’s my voice, so that we are fused.”
The Nicolas Cage survivor will be available to fuse with on July 25, or earlier on Dead by Daylight’s PC test server.