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Riding the shockwaves with uncaged Cage

A bloodied and beaten Nicolas Cage is running down the beach. He’s brandishing a sign bearing the words “locals only”, his face red with fury. There’s no time for his target to react as he wields his weapon with force. But he's far from finished.

As Cage wrestles with his prey, he pulls a rat from his pocket and starts shoving it into the beefy surfer’s face. “Eat it,” he screams at him. “Eat the rat.”

It’s late spring in Yallingup, a spectacular surfing spot on the Western Australian coast, and Cage is giving the kind of manic performance that has endeared him to movie goers worldwide. He roars down the beach and into the water with the same gusto take after take, as the temperature rises, smashing the aptly named Pitbull (Alexander Bertrand) into the ocean, rat at the ready.

It’s this commitment to character that excited co-producer Robert Connolly (Balibo, The Dry) when Cage signed on for The Surfer, a trippy and often funny psychological thriller set in a nameless seaside Australian town where the locals are far from welcoming.

“We came onto the film before Cage was attached and then suddenly it was ‘this is happening’,” says Connolly, whose wife Jane Norris cast the film. “He’s so perfect for the role. I don’t tend to import characters for my films, but I think he transcends all that – he's an icon of world cinema."

The unnamed surfer has brought his teenage son (Finn Little, Yellowstone) to the place he grew up, hoping to secure the clifftop house that belonged to his own father. But first he wants to take him surfing. That’s where the trouble begins.

The rat as revenge, Connolly explains, was Cage’s idea. “During pre-production, there was more discussions about the rat than probably any other,” he says with a laugh. “We’ve had highly trained real rats, and we’ve got an animatronic rat, a stunt rat.” 

It was the stunt rat that Cage stuffed in his pocket for the duration of filming in true Cage style. And it was Cage who suggested to director Lorcan Finnegan (Without Name, Vivarium) that he use the rat in a way that can only add to the Cage canon of crazy but infinitely memorable moments.

It was also a thrill for the Australian cast, which also includes Julian McMahon and Miranda Tapsell, to be working with the Hollywood star. “It’s not just the opportunity but the fact you know you’re in a Nicolas Cage movie – it's an elevation, if you like,” Connolly says. “And I don’t think you can underestimate the level of excitement and energy this sort of thing can bring to local crews, either.”

Playing Scally, the creepy yet charismatic cult-like leader who takes strange delight in driving Cage’s unnamed surfer mad, McMahon is clearly enjoying himself.

“Obviously the opportunity to work with Nic was really cool but I also had to connect with the character, to feel like I could bring something to the piece,” he says.

"I didn’t want to play someone I’d played too much and this was something I hadn't read before. One minute he’s cruel and the next he’s super sweet, which is really interesting to explore.”

I love the scene where Nic is going bonkers with that rat. There's no point in being boring.

Robert Connolly, Producer

Having spent most of his career speaking in an American accent in TV series such as Nip/Tuck and FBI: Most Wanted, McMahon also welcomed the challenge of capturing Scally’s local cadence. “He’s written very specifically, and each word means something, so you want to really hear what he’s saying.”

He knew going in that Cage would bring plenty of energy to the set, too. “Both Nic and I have been doing this for a long time, so we come ready to play, but you also want to express yourselves creatively – it's really cool when you allow each other to go on that journey.”

While Scally and his gang of surfers hog the shore from an unlikely command centre, a tiki hut, much of the surfer’s torment takes place in a carpark above the breathtaking coast. This unassuming spot, with a coffee shack in one corner and an old man living out of his car in another, becomes increasingly threatening as the surfer is subjected to a series of indignities. He loses his shoes, his phone and his car in rapid succession and, ultimately, his mind.

As he flashes back and forth to his youth, the surfer’s story becomes increasingly entwined with the homeless man who has lost his son, and the audience – just like the surfer – begins to question what is real and what is not.

In a film awash with blazes (and hazes) of blue, orange and red, the landscape is not only visually stunning but almost becomes a character, at turns menacing and soothing.

“We talked a lot about the importance of the landscape and location; it builds an authenticity that rewards you for the effort of coming out to the cinema,” Connolly says.

“It’s an epic, psychological journey. We make a contract with you that our films are going to take you somewhere you've never been. It’s why I love the scene when Nic is going bonkers with that rat. There’s no point in being boring.”

The Surfer is streaming on Stan