How Nicolas Cage related to his character in Dream Scenario

Martin Macdonald - 11 November 2023, 14:20 Share

Nicolas Cage was able to channel some real-life experience for his role as Paul Matthews in Dream Scenario.

The movie tells the story of an ordinary man, a college professor named Paul Matthews who suddenly starts appearing in everyone's dreams. After enjoying the limelight at first, things take a turn as Paul's fame becomes increasingly dangerous.

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It stars Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula and Dylan Baker.

To fully understand Paul being thrust into the limelight, Cage reflected on how a lot of his career has become 'meme-ified'.

"He's going through something that I felt I could relate to. I had gone through something with the internet," the Academy Award winner told Digital Spy.

"I might have been the first actor who experienced a kind of 'memefication' where my scenes that were specifically designed to have meltdowns or nervous breakdowns had been cherry picked in such a way that it would just (be) meltdown after meltdown after meltdown without any linear narrative or without any chapter or act to lead up to.

"Then I saw it go viral and I saw it grow exponentially, compounding on itself into memes and t-shirts and what not, and I thought, 'Well, this isn't really why I became an actor. What the heck is going on?' And I couldn't stop it."

Dream Scenario premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has already received acclaim from the outlets that were present at the first showing.

'Nicolas Cage is pitch-perfect brilliant' - Deadline.

'His performance is pure comedy gold' - The Hollywood Reporter

'Fearlessly funny and razor-sharp'- Vanity Fair

Dream Scenario is written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli.