44 years ago, this actor appeared for the first time on the screen, he has since become an international star. Have you recognized it when it comes to its beginnings?

Oscar for best actor in 1996 for Leaving Las Vegas, Nicolas Cage has since become one of the most mocked players in the Internet for his propensity for exaggeration and acts of actor sometimes outside the usual framework of contemporary American actors. One thing is certain: his style belongs only to him.

He has chained cult films, volt/facing Rock via Sailor & Lula or the wings of hell, more confidential projects like The Weather Man or Birdy and above all, for a good fifteen years, films with small budgets which ravit only his most unconditional fans (and even among them, some have dropped the case). But do you know his very first role?

Have you recognized it?

ABC

We are in 1981. Nicolas Cage is 17 years old and he was engaged in the TV movie The Best of Times, his very first role on the screen. Designed to be the pilot of a sitcom worn by Crispin Glover for the American channel ABC, she presents a group of teenagers at the end of the high school seeking what to do with their lives and how to manage their problems. Cage interprets a follower of surfing not very clever and very proud of his plastic.

When in front of a freak, he declares to hesitate “Between Harvard and Stanford”his friend David (David Rambo) replied: “There is no surf at Harvard” and Nic answers: “Well that goes to the question!”

ABC

The series will never be done, perhaps because of the lack of cohesion of the pilot, which is only a succession of fairly disjointed sketches exploiting the archetype of each character. Only originality: a moment “musical” on 9 to 5 From Dolly Parton and the fact that some characters break the fourth wall by addressing the public.

And after?

In his early years, Nicolas Cage will run in particular with Alan Parker (Birdy1984), the Coen brothers (Arizona Junior, 1987) or David Lynch (Sailor and Lula1990), three films that will go through the Cannes Film Festival. His international career will really began in the mid -90s with the success of billionaire despite himself and a guardian angel for Tess (1994) followed by Leaving Las Vegas, for which he won the Oscar for best actor, thus opening the doors of Hollywood blockbusters.