The Surfer Director Lorcan Finnegan on Why Nicolas Cage Kept a Rat in His Pocket, and Wh

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Lorcan Finnegan’s “The Surfer,” screening at Taormina Film Festival following its premiere at Cannes, promises to be one of the year’s cult films. A bizarro mix of Kafka and Ozploitation, the film boasts a late phase Cage performance and a psycho-comedy that appears all the darker for its sunbaked setting. The Irish director of “Vivarium” and “Nocebo” spoke with Variety as the Mediterranean glittered tantalizingly in the distance.

Were you familiar with surfing culture before making the film?

I wouldn’t call myself a surfer, as I’m more of a skateboarder, and so I didn’t really know much about that culture. And this whole toxic masculinity stuff never really appealed to me, but I didn’t want to reject something, just because I didn’t know about it. It’s an interesting challenge.

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Why did you choose Australia as the setting?

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It was going to be California, but I just pictured Australia. I’d been out there a few times to shoot commercials and stuff. I also have a deep love of Australia New Wave films: “Wake in Fright,” “The Long Weekend” and “Walkabout.” Some of the best of those were directed by outsiders, like Ted Kotcheff, who directed “Wake in Fright,” is Canadian, and Nic Roeg is obviously British. Peter Weir’s “The Last Wave,” particularly the end, was also an influence on “The Surfer.”

When did Nic Cage get involved?

Once we decided the character was American, we thought of him at a very early stage. We had this window when we didn’t want it to be too hot, so prepping in the Australian spring to shoot just the beginning of the summer. His availability was good. We rolled the dice and sent him the script. Weirdly enough, he’d seen “Vivarium” and “Nocebo” and loved them. He read the script and said “Oh, I get it. It’s Kafka.” He completely connected with the material. We jumped on Zoom, had a chat and got on great.

What did he bring to the film?

Once he was on board, we did a lot of script revisions over several months. All of his ideas were brilliant. Small stuff, but really improving it and making it his. When we’re shooting, we got to know each other and we’re having a laugh together. We have a similar rhythm. We both like to work fast.

So, who came up with the rat? [‘The Surfer’ includes a scene with a dead rat destined to join the pantheon of classic Cage memes.]

It’s a funny story. We do the scene where he kills the rat. Nic got very attached to the rat prop. The art department kept asking for it back and he’d say “No, I want to keep it in my pocket.” He was getting in character, and he was thinking he would keep it, because it was the one little bit of food he has. Then what would he do with it? Eventually?

Chekhov’s rat?

Exactly. And Nic thought of this scene in the Humphrey Bogart film “Sabrina” where a guy takes an olive and pushes it into his uncle’s mouth and says, “You eat the olive.”

It’s his tribute to Billy Wilder?

Sort of. Nic came up with a lot. The scene where he’s ranting about having a nice family dinner on the veranda with puttanesca pasta and clams for instance. We did a few takes where we cleared the entire space because we were shooting with an 8mm lens, super wide angle. And people had to hide in cars as the camera roamed around. He wasn’t even sure what he’d said after. He harnessed his inner shaman, and it was brilliant. Some amazing stuff came out. And he got bitten by a snake.

Okay. What?

We have a scene with the snake, where it goes across his hand. Nic’s familiar with reptiles, so he wanted to kind of handle it himself. But it was late at night, and it wasn’t really moving very energetically. I asked the handler – who’s right behind Nic – is there anything we can do to get it to move more. She said: “Tickle his tail.” So Nic tickled the tail and the thing [mimes snake attack] and it drew blood! It was non-venomous. Nic was like, “Oh, my God.” And the handler says, “Oh yeah, if you tickle them they can become quite aggressive and bite.”

Would you like to work with him again?

Yeah, hopefully. We’re looking at some things.

What’s next?

We’re shooting a film in Greece next spring called “Goliath,” which I’ve been developing for a few years. It’s a kind of dystopian fable set in the near future. It’s about creating monsters in order to start wars and steal natural resources. But told through the prism of fable.

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