Nicolas Cage Grew Up Thinking He Was An Alien: "I Was Certain I Was From Another Planet"

Nicolas Cage used to think he was an alien as a child.

Speaking to Ramp Style magazine, the 58-year-old actor revealed that it was his father, August Coppola — brother of Francis Ford Coppola — who gave him that idea.

Cage said: "My father told me he felt like he had to introduce himself to me because I was such an alien. I was shocked the day I went to the doctor’s office as a child and I found out that I had normal organs and a normal skeleton because I was certain I was from another planet. "

In the interview, he also explained that he always struggled to "connect" with others and was eventually inspired by late eccentric pop star David Bowie to take up a career in showbusiness.

He said: "I had difficulties connecting with other people. When I saw David Bowie in [the 1976 film] The Man Who Fell to Earth, I realised I needed to do something. So I became an actor.'"

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent actor has made headlines over previous bizarre claims in the past, once alleging that he had been stalked by a mime while shooting Bringing Out the Dead in 1999.

He told Parade magazine in 2009: "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."— BANG SHOWBIZ