‘Renfield’: How David Bowie Inspired Nicolas Cage’s Dracula Wardrobe

British singer Linda Lewis, who scored a string UK solo hits in the 1970s but is most widely known as one of the era’s most in-demand back-up singers who recorded with Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens, David Bowie, T. Rex and Rod Stewart, died at her home on May 3. She was 72.

Linda Lewis — who has worked with artists including David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Rod Stewart — has died, aged 72.The singer had spent more than four decades within the industry, working with some of the most famous names in music. She also had a prominent solo career throughout the 1970s, which featured a number of Top 40 hits.Her death was announced by her sibling, Dee Lewis Clay, on social media today (May 4).In the update, Clay confirmed the “heartbreaking” news of Lewis’s passing, and described her as a ‘beloved beautiful sister”.

Look, there’s no denying Nicolas Cage is an odd dude. That’s not meant to be an insult either.

Nicolas Cage has recalled the first concert he ever attended to see The Who.In a newly aired segment from the April 13 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Nicolas Cage partook in the “Colbert Questionert” and was asked about the first concert he ever attended.Cage revealed that his first concert was seeing The Who perform at the Fillmore Stadium in San Fransisco, before going on to explain how “blown away” he was by the performance. “Roger [Daltrey] did this incredible thing where he was spinning the microphone with the cable and he just hit the cymbal.

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Monday night. “Let me think. Listen, I know this sounds really far out and I don’t know if it’s real or not, but sometimes I think I can go all the way back to in utero and feeling like I could see faces in the dark or something,” Cage told the late-night host of his earliest memory.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Nicolas Cage took a questionnaire for Stephen Colbert during a recent visit to “The Tonight Show” and revealed in typical Cage fashion that his earliest childhood memory is actually being in his mother’s womb. “Let me think. Listen, I know this sounds really far out and I don’t know if it’s real or not, but sometimes I think I can go all the way back to in-utero and feeling like I could see faces in the dark or something,” Cage said. “I know that sounds powerfully abstract, but that somehow seems like maybe it happened.” “Now that I am no longer in utero, I would have to imagine it was perhaps vocal vibrations resonating through to me at that stage,” Cage added. “That’s going way back. I don’t know. That comes to mind… I don’t even know if I remember being in utero, but that thought has crossed my mind.”

$6 million in debt.Appearing on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday, the Oscar winner recalled his financial struggles after the real estate market crashed, saying he signed up for any role he could just to be able to pay the money back.“I was over-invested in real estate,” he confessed. “The real estate market crashed, and I couldn’t get out in time.”“I paid them all back, but it was about $6 million.

“Renfield” star told Yahoo Entertainment of his regrets. “I’m sorry I did it at all.”Cage claimed on the film’s DVD commentary track that he was the one that begged for the live insects, as the original script allegedly called for Cage to simply swallow a raw egg. “I saw it as a business decision because when people see the cockroach go in my mouth … [they] really react,” he reportedly said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Nicolas Cage will not be eating cockroaches on camera ever again. The Oscar winner recently told Yahoo Entertainment that eating two cockroaches on camera during the making of his 1988 comedy “Vampire’s Kiss” remains a career regret. “I’ll never do that again,” Cage said. “I’m sorry I did it at all.” “Vampire’s Kiss” stars Cage as a literary critic who becomes convinced he is a vampire. The film’s script originally called for the actor to swallow a raw egg, but Cage insisted it be a cockroach instead. As he said on the film’s DVD commentary track: “I saw it as a business decision because when people see the cockroach go in my mouth…[they] really react.”

The acting life isn’t always glamorous. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice for the part. Submitted for your approval is one Nicolas Cage, who has revealed a major regret captured on film while out promoting his current horror comedy, Renfield, which features Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as the title servant, R.M. Renfield.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor When director Chris McKay was making “Renfield” he turned to production designer Alec Hammond (“Donnie Darko”) to help deliver a fresh and updated take on the Dracula story, by taking “a big monster movie, rooting it in the classic movies, but subverting any expectations.” The film starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as his faithful sidekick Renfield, begins in 1931, in black-and-white. It was important, Hammond says, to set up Cage’s world in the historic context of harkening back to classic Dracula movies before jumping to the present day. The Charity Hospital in New Orleans, which had been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina, was the perfect location for Hammond to set Dracula and Renfield’s modern-day lair.

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Thursday, the Academy Award winner took a trip down memory lane with the host while promoting his new film, “Renfield.”While Cage, whose real name is Nicolas Coppola, has some impressive blockbusters under his belt — including “National Treasure,” “Moonstruck,” and “The Rock” — the 59-year-old’s top five is comprised of his lesser-known work.“I’m going to start with ‘Pig’ that is my favorite movie I have ever made,” Cage told Colbert. “I love ‘Mandy,’ the movie that Panos [Cosmatos] directed. I love ‘Bringing Out The Dead’ that Martin Scorsese directed.

Stuck in a movie theater seat watching “Renfield” plod along, the answer is a resounding meh.As the Count from “Sesame Street” would say, “‘Renfield’ gets TWO stars! Ah, ah, ah.”Cage — whose career has become so goofy he recently played a parody version of himself who gets kidnapped by a Spanish drug lord — is as funny and self-aware as the evil old vampire. Crazy, it would seem, has become Cage’s new normal. But don’t come looking for a wacky sendup of the story in the vein of Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” It’s actually not even as hilarious as that director’s much-worse 1995 movie “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” and outside of a few basic details the film has little to do with Bram Stoker’s book.“Renfield,” directed by Chris McKay, has more in common with the (far better) “Zombieland” series, with high-body-count action sequences, quick-cut comedy and an unlikely, socially awkward hero. That would be Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), Count Dracula’s beleaguered “familiar,” who has been gifted an unnaturally long life in exchange for bringing the vamp fresh victims.

“Renfield,” an outrageous new take on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” told from the point of view of the count’s perpetually put-upon manservant (played here by Nicholas Hoult), the notion of being too over-the-top is considered and then hastily breezed by. In the opening sequence alone, an ancient curse is placed on the dark prince (played, with much scenery-chewing, by Nicolas Cage); when Dracula is freed he turns into a vaporous mist and explodes a priest from the inside. Then Dracula catches on fire and is turned into a crispy skeleton.The sequence is telling both for its bold tonal shifts and for the manic approach to action.

There have been so many variations and film versions of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula, from 1926’s Nosferatu to Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula to Francis Coppola’s well-regarded take with Gary Oldman to even comedic satires like Love at First Bite with George Hamilton taking on the role. Now in Universal’s latest effort to rescue its horror classics and make them new again, we have the perfectly cast Nicolas Cage as the Prince of Darkness. Even he has done an offshoot before, in 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss. However this time around the film is not centered on Dracula himself, but rather his beleaguered servant, henchman, whatever you choose to call him, Renfield, and it is another Nicholas, as in Hoult, who has the title role this time in Renfield. Cage’s part, though meaty, is actually supporting as the emphasis turns to the long-suffering assistant who was tasked with bringing his boss’ prey directly to him, consuming bugs of all sorts in order to get superhuman powers to conquer them, and basically taking the fall for anything this narcissistic vampire does not find to his liking.

David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ is set to be released alongside a series of NFTs.To celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Let’s Dance’, blockchain platform Gala Music has teamed up with writer and producer Larry Dvoskin (David Bowie, Robert Plant, Bono, The Beach Boys) to release a limited series of David Bowie inspired digital collectibles.The series goes live April 14, giving fans early access to a previously-unheard version of ‘Let’s Dance’ which was recorded 19 years after the original and produced by Dvoskin.“I am first and foremost a huge Bowie fan. It would have been a mistake to attempt to copy the original.

Variety Thursday.“Nic wanted to emote and annunciate properly, so it was important the veneers were thin,” he said, explaining that the technology allowed him to make quick adjustments to the sharp dentures when needed.In order to put the 3-D printing to good use, Tinsley had to scan Cage’s teeth and then digitally sculpt them so they could fit in his mouth perfectly.The “National Treasure” actor also spent over three hours daily in the hair and makeup chair.“It was a full head of prosthetics, dentures, full body, torso, arms, hands and nails,” Tinsley noted. “Those take time.”Cage also stayed in character for the whole time they were shooting the flick, even when the camera wasn’t on him.

Donald Trump again using the music of his late father to soundtrack his politics.Trump, who on Tuesday (April 4) became the first former or current US president to be charged with a crime, chose David Bowie‘s 1974 hit ‘Rebel Rebel’ for his warm-up music ahead of his post-arrest speech.Jones, the filmmaker son of Bowie and Mary Angela Barnett, criticised the former US president for using his father’s music.“Pretty sure this fucker keeps on using my dad’s music just to annoy me personally,” he tweeted, adding: “(Joke. I’m way below his radar.)”Pretty sure this fucker keeps on using my dad’s music just to annoy me personally.

Want to know how the iconic Dracula teeth were made?