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GORE VERBINSKI:
“I wanted to do a drama after Pirates of the Caribbean. This was a great script. I don’t think the American dream with the perfect family exists anymore, and it’s the erosion of the American family that I’m dealing with here.”
NICOLAS CAGE:
“At the time when I agreed to do The Weather Man, I was going through a divorce and was trying to figure out how I could take the negative and turn it into a positive. I received the script to The Weather Man and I thought, ‘Oh, well here’s a parallel.’ Sometimes I choose movies that can help me, like therapy, do something positive with a negative emotion.”
VERBINSKI:
“Both Nicolas and I are 40 years old, and he read the script at the same time I did, so when I finished it I was thinking of him. When I met him, he said, ‘I am this guy. I don’t have to act.’ He’s been through marriages, he goes out and people harass him publicly, and he’s struggling like all of us against mediocrity in our lives. So there was really nobody else to play the part.”
HOPE DAVIS (Noreen Spritz):
“Nic is extremely unique, he’s just not like other people. He really marches to the beat of a different drummer. He’s unpredictable in a way that’s really great on film. He tries new things on different takes and he’s always coming at it with a new twist, so it was really interesting for me, because I was never quite sure what was going to happen.”
VERBINSKI on casting Michael Caine as Cage’s father:
“The script required an unbelievable character that is impossible to live up to, and to me that’s Michael Caine. It’s rare that you get star-struck when you meet a lot of actors, but with Michael Caine you want to touch him to be sure he’s really there. And he treated me like David Lean, he was really respectful. He’s the kindest man, and he has so much integrity.”
CAGE:
“It’s always fascinating to work with the best in the field, and Michael Caine, to me, has always been among the best in film acting. It was a wonderful opportunity to study him, to look at his very seasoned approach to film acting. I was ecstatic to work with him. And he also was friendly, which was an added bonus.”
VERBINSKI:
“This film’s about a man struggling against the elements, the weatherman, and his battle against mediocrity. We all want to be more, we want to be better lovers, better parents, better at our jobs, and yet at some point we have to face the music and stop trying to be something and realize who we are.”
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THE CONCEPT:
