10 Actors Who Aren't Afraid To Mock Themselves
1. Nicolas Cage: The Human Meme - The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent
Nicolas Cage's financial struggles have been well-documented, but while some actors would perhaps talk this down, Cage has signed on to a whole movie about them! In The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, Cage is facing financial difficulty and agrees to spy on a wealthy fan who's asked him to appear at his birthday party. Hearing of this, the CIA recruit Cage to spy on the billionaire Javi who is part of a violent criminal cartel.
The script is full of references to Cage movies, both embracing and strives to move past how much of a meme Cage has become in recent years. In throwing himself so willingly into playing multiple versions of himself (a de-aged version who, like Birdman, tells Cage to act more like Nic f***ing Cage) and self-referentially highlighting his various tics and quirks, the actor shows that he has a sense of humour about himself and his work.
Arguably, Cage has been doing this sort of schtick for years, before even Face/Off, and this film is the end-result. It's certainly clear from a wide, and admittedly weird, filmography that the man has a lack of actorly vanity when it comes to "art". The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent pays tribute to exactly this.