Kick-Ass: Nicolas Cage Reveals Adam West Not A Fan Of His Impression

If there’s anyone who might be self-aware of the phrase “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” it would be actor Nicolas Cage. While promoting his upcoming film, where the actor plays a fictionalized version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Cage hosted an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. One of the questions came from the username BennieWilliams asking him if there were other inspirations behind his character in Kick-Ass as Big Daddy aside from the 1960s TV Batman star in the late Adam West.

“I would give it all to Adam West,” Cage said. “I grew up watching him on the ’60s Batman show, and he is where it begins and where it ends as Big Daddy. I met Adam West once, and I said, ‘Did you see I was channeling you?’ and he said, ‘I saw you TRY to channel me!'” Big Daddy was clad in almost the exact same suit as Batman in all black with a yellow utility belt with his hero’s initials as the buckle. While not as advanced in gadgets as the Caped Crusader, Cage’s character amassed artillery similar to the Punisher. Inspired by the hero Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Big Daddy and his equally trained and just-as-lethal daughter Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) take out bad guys with ruthless and brutal efficiency.

The Cage character and West’s are polar opposites as BD indiscriminately had no qualms killing mobsters, and other criminals, whereas ’60s Batman reflected the far more campy values of the time with just hand-to-hand combat, over-the-top comic effects, and abilities of deduction. The only thing both had in common was the mannerisms and dad jokes. Sadly, Big Daddy succumbed to his wounds near the end of the 2010 Matthew Vaughn film. Lionsgate’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which also stars Pedro Pascal, Sharon Hogan, Tiffany Haddish, and Neil Patrick Harris, comes to theaters on April 15th.