Nicolas Cage reveals he legally changed his name – removing tie to one of Hollywood's most famous families

For more than 40 years, Nicolas Cage has gone by the stage name of, well, Nicolas Cage.

But after decades, the acting icon, born Nicolas Kim Coppola, revealed he legally changed his last name to Cage just last year.

"I'm Nic Cage in life, and I'm Nic Cage on camera," he told Variety.

Cage was born into Hollywood's famous Coppola family. His uncle is five-time Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter, Sofia Coppola, also an Oscar-winner, is Cage's cousin.

"'Tis better to be the patriarch of my own little family than the clown cousin on the margins of someone else's, so I decided I'm going to bring it on and be 'Cage'," he said.

Cage used his birth name only twice in his acting career, in 1981 television pilot The Best of Times and 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

He then changed his last name to avoid claims of nepotism, taking his stage name from Marvel comic book superhero Luke Cage and American composer John Cage.

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"'Cage' is a name that I liked coming across in the comics – I just thought he had a cool name – and I grew up in a very avant-garde, artsy family and there was talk about John Cage and the experimental compositions that he did," Cage said.

"I was looking for something like 'James Dean', I was looking for something short and sweet.

"I thought, I'll keep the name 'Nicolas' because my father named me Nicolas – with French spelling, which has always frustrated me, because everyone adds an 'h'. I don't know why he gave me the French spelling! But he did."

Cage also said he did not mind if people called him Nicolas or shortened it to Nic.

"I'm both! I think people know me as both," he said.

The actor had previously said his decision to change his last name came after being teased on the set of Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982.

"I was still Nicholas Coppola and people would not stop saying things like, 'I love the smell of Nicholas in the morning' because of [Francis Ford Coppola film] Apocalypse Now and Robert Duvall saying 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning.'

"It made it hard to work, and I decided I don't need this so I changed it to Cage."