It’s a well-known fact that Nic Cage is a bit of a weird man who has a very positive relationship with animals and wildlife. Some examples: he has done shrooms with his cat, briefly owned a two-headed snake (which did not go well), and frequently gets into fights with his pet crow. But while he loves furry friends, he does not have any reservations about chowing down on some tiny critters, which he actively encourages and thinks could be the key to ending world hunger.
Cage and Reinfield co-star Nicholas Hoult recently discussed the tough part about being an actor: eating bugs. Of course, the bugs are all flavored and all that, so they actually taste pretty good. Allegedly. “The best thing we ate were the crickets,” said Hoult told Entertainment Weekly in a new interview.
Eating bugs sounds gross. And it is! But the bugs were flavored, which made it less gross, in theory. “The crickets were like smoky bacon flavor and salt and vinegar. I love salt and vinegar, so I was happy about eating the crickets,” Hoult explained, adding the gross details, “You would occasionally get little bits stuck in your teeth…Also, the worms were just gummy worms in crushed-up Oreos to make it look like dirt.” It seems that Hollywood has finally discovered the incomparable allure of the childhood staple Dirt Pudding.
Even though the prospect of eating bugs is a little gross to many, if not all of us, on Earth, Cage thinks that it can actually solve world hunger. “If we could get over our phobia of eating insects you could solve world starvation,” the actor explained. “It’s high protein, no fat, extreme nutrients, and they’re just abundant, they’re everywhere. But, no, we’re not going to do that!” Are any of us ready to listen to the man who only recently learned how to cook a potato?
Still, Cage says that the world isn’t ready for insect buffets quite yet. And even though he supports it, Cage is done eating insects, no matter how nutritionally valuable they are. “I’ve learned to move on from that,” he explained later on. In fact, Cage insists that he would never eat bugs again after the infamous Vampire’s Kiss scene. I’ll never do that again,” told Yahoo! Entertainment. “I’m sorry I did it at all.”
So he’s both a hypocrite and an innovative thinker when it comes to eating bugs. Maybe he should put his money (bugs) where his mouth is (and eat them). Then we can all follow suit.