2 of Nicolas Cage's biggest fans convinced the actor to play himself in an outlandish new movie. Here's how they pulled it off — and what Cage himself brought to the script.

• Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten are two of Nicolas Cage's biggest fans.
• Gormican and Etten directed and wrote, respectively, a new film starring Cage as himself.

Ahead of the SXSW film festival premiere of "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" last month, a striking poster was stuck to nearly every pole, column, and electrical box on the streets of downtown Austin.

The flyer featured a large photo of Nicolas Cage, who stars in the new film, as well as a bold request — "Nicolas Cage, I'm you're biggest fan. Please call me" — and a phone number with an Austin, Texas area code. (Apparently, when called, the phone number did, in fact, connect you to an overzealous local fan of the actor's.)

Tom Gormican, who directed "Massive Talent," and Kevin Etten, who wrote it with Gormican, weren't responsible for the eye-catching posters around Austin. But during an interview with Insider after the film's joyous festival premiere on March 12, the two made it clear that they could give the poster's creator a run for their money.

The two are also huge Cage fans — Gormican especially can quote lines from the actor's entire movie catalog at the drop of a hat. But getting Cage to commit to their unconventional film (in which the legendary actor plays a fictionalized version of himself recruited to work for the CIA) was hardly an easy task.

"We wrote this letter to him with the script in it, and people had started reading" the script around Hollywood, Gormican said. "There were major producers reading this thing who had worked with Nic, calling Nic, going, 'We want to produce this movie about you.' And he was like, 'That sounds incredible. What movie are you talking about?'"

The filmmakers noted that the first part of the script portrays the onscreen version of Cage in a rather unflattering light — he's depicted as an attention-seeking, washed-up actor who can barely maintain a relationship with his teenage daughter and estranged wife (played by Lily Sheen and Sharon Horgan, respectively).

"Act one is the one where he's in the toughest position. He looks the worst. It's gonna take a very game actor to do that," Gormican recalled thinking at the time. Etten, for his part, just wanted Cage to get to the middle of the script, where things "start to turn" for his character.

But despite their initial worries, Cage eventually agreed to sign on and threw himself headfirst into the role of... himself.

The film is an ode to Cage and his incredible film career

"Massive Talent" is peppered with references to Cage's past work. The opening sequence of the film, for example, features a clip from Cage's 1997 action thriller "Con Air," in which he plays a reformed criminal trying to prevent a group of prison inmates from hijacking a plane.

Cage told Insider at the red carpet premiere of "Massive Talent" that he rewatched his action film "Face/Off" to prepare for this role. And as Gormican and Etten explained, Cage's body of work provided a trove of inspiration during filming and editing.

"The opening of the movie, for example, switched back and forth between [clips from] 'Con Air' and 'Face/Off.' In one he's a villain and in one he's the hero," Gormican revealed of the editing process, noting that they ultimately decided to use the clip from "Con Air."

"We decided to go the hero route," he added.

During another scene in "Massive Talent," a despondent Cage jumps into a swimming pool with a beer in hand and has a moment of silent contemplation underneath the water. It's a direct reference to a similar scene in the 1995 drama "Leaving Las Vegas," in which Cage plays an alcoholic screenwriter determined to drink himself to death (he later won a Golden Globe and Academy Award for the performance).

"I said, 'So you just go down there, and you're sort of under the water, you're in this position,'" Gormican recalled of recreating that scene with Cage. "And he said, 'Tom, Tom, Tom. I know, I've already done it.'"

"It was just surreal," Gormican added. "You're directing a scene from this legend's career, from a movie you love."

Cage's personal anecdotes and suggestions made it into the final cut of the movie

Cage's prolific body of work wasn't the only inspiration during the filmmaking process — both Gormican and Etten told Insider that the actor's real-life anecdotes frequently made their way into the script, including a conversation Cage had with Horgan about a unique belt he'd received from his dresser.

"Once he got comfortable with us and the idea that we were there to celebrate his life and career, then he was more comfortable giving the people what they want," Etten said. "It was that trust. He would tell his stories, and we would go, 'Okay, maybe we could work that in.'"

Perhaps the film's most iconic moment comes about midway through, when Cage has an intense conversation with Nicky, an imagined younger version of himself, in a Spanish bar. He's just been recruited by the CIA to spy on his new friend Javi (Pedro Pascal), an eccentric but kindly millionaire who's a superfan of Cage.

To go into details of the two Nics' conversation would be a bit of a spoiler, but the gist of it involves Nicky confronting Cage for not being bold enough. Nicky then slaps the elder Cage and picks him up to give him a passionate French kiss. To conclude the chat, Nic's alter ego reminds him, "I'm Nic fucking Cage," drawing out the vowel sounds in "fucking" into a guttural yell that crescendos into an excited whoop.

According to Etten, the delightfully absurd and meta make-out was all Cage's idea. "He was like, 'Do you guys like that idea?'" Etten recalled. "We're like, 'Uh, yeah.'"

The filmmakers even added in Nicky's line, "You tell them Nic Cage smooches good!" at the behest of Cage.

As for the passionate delivery of "Nic fucking Cage"? That was all Cage too. "That is something you can't direct or write," Gormican said.

"The entire crew was just sitting there looking at each other, 'cause it takes a minute to finish," the director recalled of filming the memorable line. "We finished our take and we're just like 'Cut.' And [Cage] comes over, and smiles at me, and he goes, 'I wanted it to be transcendent.'"

During production, Cage stole the show in more ways than one

Despite his eccentricities, both Etten and Gormican said Cage is, above all else, a consummate professional, and completely dedicated to his craft.

"One of the things that you want is an actor who really cares. And I don't think we've met or worked with anybody that prepared as much as Nic did for this film," Gormican said. "I'll give you an example. We did a table read on Zoom, with all the actors, right before we started shooting, just to hear it out loud. And Nic was already off-book of a 120-page script."

"Nic was there in his pink leather motorcycle jacket, and giant glasses, just destroying all of his parts. And they were all in awe," Gormican continued. "That's what you get with Nic. After 117 or 118 movies, he still loves acting."

Cage previously described his acting technique as "nouveau shamanism," telling Insider in a red-carpet interview at SXSW that his approach to acting is inspired, in part, by German expressionist films. He particularly loves the silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," an anecdote that also made its way into "Massive Talent."

The actor's nouveau shamanism technique — in which he commits to a bombastic onscreen performance but doesn't stay in character when not filming — is seemingly a direct contrast to the infamous method acting technique, which has been utilized in recent years by actors like Jared Leto.

His unique approach to the craft definitely puts Cage in a complete league of his own, Gormican explained.

"He can be having a very casual conversation with you about whatever's going on in your life," the director said. But the minute it comes time to film, Gormican revealed, Cage "locks in milliseconds" regardless of the intensity of the scene.

"It takes everybody, including the other actors, by surprise because he could turn it on and turn it off immediately," the filmmaker added. "He's not a sort of method actor by any stretch."

Cage is in nearly every scene in "Massive Talent," but he pivots between high-stakes action sequences and quietly emotional conversations with an ease that might be surprising to those accustomed to the actor's more high-octane performances, in films like "National Treasure" (2004) and "Kick Ass" (2010).

The final scene — in which Cage, having reconciled with his daughter, watches a movie with her — was particularly poignant to film, according to Etten.

"When she puts her head on his shoulder, and he starts to tear up, I was watching the monitors and I started getting emotional," Etten said. "I look over and I see these old crew guys all covering their tears. I was like, 'Oh my God.'"

Cage contains multitudes, for lack of a better term. From an outside perspective, he's enigmatic, a larger-than-life personality with a lengthy filmography and a penchant for the bizarre.

According to Etten and Gormican, however, Cage's reputation is a bit misleading. The eccentricity is there, of course, but so too is a deep-rooted commitment to films and filmmaking, regardless of the genre or caliber.

"Nic has such a breadth of the types of films that he's a fan of," Gormican said. "He was really into J-horror when we were shooting. I was talking to him about, 'Dr. Caligari' and 'Metropolis' and all the German expressionist films. But also, as he says in the film, 'I love "Croods 2." I made it with Emma Stone.'"

For some, Cage's recent films have ushered in a new era for the actor, a comeback of sorts after highly-publicized financial and legal troubles in the early 2010s.

But as Cage himself reminds the audience in "Massive Talent," he never really left — and this film is proof that the actor is here to stay.