Nicolas Cage has a new interview in Parade, and of course I read between the lines trying to see if he refers to his immense money problems at all. He doesn’t, except in a vague general terms when he talks about not crying over spilt milk, which I took to mean not trying to think too much about wasting tens of millions of dollars. The most unintentionally hilarious part is when he mentions a stalker he once had – who was a mime. I know stalking is serious and can be deadly for celebrities, but wouldn’t a mime be kind of harmless apart from the high creepiness factor?

In 2007, a guy broke into Cage’s home while his wife and then two year-old son were there. Cage caught the man standing there naked and wearing only one of his stolen jackets. He wasn’t that harmful, though, and let Cage take him outside and call the police. I don’t know if he’s referring to this incident or not, but the intruder had a pass to Cage’s gated community because he has a relative there. It sounds like it was one of those Anne Heche-type crazy random home invasion incidents. This guy doesn’t sound like the mime, because mimes usually wear black leotards and white face make-up, right? It seems kind of fitting that Cage would have a mime for a stalker and a naked guy breaking into his home.

Cage also talked about his upcoming trip to Uganda, and it sounds like he’s trying to commit himself to charity in light of his massive personal problems. He is promoting Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans with Eva Mendes.

His mysterious trip to Africa.
“I’m excited that I’m going to go to Uganda. I’ll spend eight days there, but I don’t want to talk too much about it because it’s sort of about my new life in terms of what I want to do with the emphasis on action. I’ve been to Africa plenty of times, all over, but never Uganda.”

Facing up to what he’d like to avoid.
“I feel you always have to confront your fears within reason. You don’t want the fear to overcome you so the only way to face it, to overcome it is to face it. It’s calling you and you have to answer the challenge. When I’m afraid to do something, I know I have to do it.”

Well, there was that one fan he managed to avoid.
“I guess it would fall into the stalker category more or less. I was being stalked by a mime — silent but maybe deadly. Somehow, this mime would appear on the set of Bringing Out the Dead and start doing strange things. I have no idea how it got past security. Finally, the producers took some action and I haven’t seen the mime since. But it was definitely unsettling.”

Trying to keep it all together.
“I’m a tremendous worrier but I’m beginning to realize that I can’t just cry over spilled milk. When there’s nothing I can do about it, why worry? I just want to keep doing things that excite me and not worry too much about what other people are thinking. When I act, I act for myself. I just have to turn myself on. What I want to do is keep the romance and passion alive in myself.”

[From Parade]

Parade has more, including Cage talking about how he prepared for his role as a drug addict by talking to people in recovery. He comes across as a little neurotic when he compares his performance to abstract art, saying “Acting doesn’t need to be different than painting. If you look at something abstract hanging on the wall in the Museum of Modern Art you might say, ‘Wow, that’s over the top.’ But to me, rather than over the top, it was more like, ‘Hang on a minute, let’s go outside of the box together.'” I have a feeling Cage has been outside the box for most of his life and that he’s finally facing the consequences.