Washington DC [US], May 29 (ANI): Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage has opened up about the reason behind changing his surname from Coppola and revealed that he legally made the change permanent last year, according to E! News.

Born Nicolas Kim Coppola, the actor said he wanted to build an identity separate from his famous filmmaking family.

'I am Nick Cage,' the actor said in an interview with Variety while speaking about being known by his stage name for decades.

'I changed my name legally last year. I'm Nick Cage in life, and I'm Nick Cage on camera,' he added.

Cage, who belongs to the renowned Coppola family, said he wanted his career to stand on its own rather than being linked to his relatives' legacy.

''Tis better to be the patriarch of my own little family than the clown cousin on the margins of someone else's,' he said. 'So I decided I'm going to bring it on and be 'Cage.''

The actor also shared how he came up with the surname 'Cage,' revealing that the inspiration came from Marvel superhero Luke Cage and avant-garde composer John Cage, according to E! News.

''Cage' is a name that I liked coming across in the comics, I just thought he had a cool name,' he said.

'I grew up in a very avant-garde, artsy family, and there was talk about John Cage and the experimental compositions that he did,' he added, according to E! News.

The actor further explained that he wanted a simple and memorable screen name.

'I was looking for something like 'James Dean.' I was looking for something short and sweet,' Cage shared.

While he retained his first name, Cage admitted he was never fond of its French spelling.

'I thought, well, I'll keep the name 'Nicolas' because my father named me Nicolas, with French spelling, which has always frustrated me, because everyone adds an 'h',' he said.

'I don't know why he gave me the French spelling! But he did,' he added.

The actor had previously spoken about deciding to change his surname after audiences repeatedly connected him to filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and his iconic film 'Apocalypse Now'.

According to Cage, people often quoted lines from the film at him during the early days of his career.

'People would not stop saying things like, 'I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning' because of Apocalypse Now,' he said in an interview in 2022, referring to Robert Duvall's famous dialogue from the film.

'And it made it hard to work and I said, 'I don't need this.' So, I changed it to Cage,' he added.

Cage was initially credited as Nicolas Coppola in the 1982 film 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' before adopting the new surname, according to E! News. (ANI)