Nicolas Cage shot down any hopes Pedro Pascal had for bringing him into the Star Wars fold. While we’d love to see The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent co-stars reunite, it sounds like it won’t be in a galaxy far, far away. It turns out Cage prefers a different science fiction franchise. “I’m a Trekkie, man,” he tells Kevin Polowy of Yahoo Entertainment in the clip below when asked about Pascal’s desire to get Cage into Star Wars.
This certainly got us, and the internet, fan-casting Cage in any and all upcoming Star Trek projects. A guest role in one of the many TV shows seems the most likely scenario. Cage only mentioned the original series timeframe, saying he grew up on Shatner and thinks Pine is “terrific.” So maybe he’d prefer Discovery or Strange New Worlds. But we’d love to see him bring even more wackiness to Lower Decks.
Cage could be a Starfleet Academy classmate of the U.S.S. Cerrito’s Captain Carol Freeman. Maybe there’s a dark secret and it goes full Wesley Crusher conspiracy like in “The First Duty”. Or perhaps he could just play himself? He’s certainly as important as other historical figures who show up on The Next Generation holodecks, like Sigmund Freud and Mark Twain. Or maybe Star Trek and National Treasure take place in the same universe and Ensign Beckett Mariner hits up Benjamin Franklin Gates’ diaries for treasure-hunting tips.
In the interview, which we saw thanks to The Hollywood Reporter, Cage elaborates more on why he prefers Star Trek to Star Wars: “To me, what science fiction is really all about and why it’s such an important genre is that really you can say whatever you want, however you feel. You put it on a different planet, you put it in a different time or in the future, and you without people just jumping on you, you can really express your thoughts like Orwell or whomever in the science-fiction format. And Star Trek really embraced that.”
While there’s plenty of political and sociological themes in Star Wars, it’s totally fine if Cage prefers Star Trek. It’s certainly welcome news that he has been a fellow Trekkie all this time. And hopefully he knows it’s not mutually exclusive. He can also be into Star Wars! Or even show up on The Mandalorian without being a lifelong fan.
Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Melissa is also a lifelong Trekkie. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.