I love talking about Nicolas Cage, 48, because he’s such a whack job. The details that came out during his financial crisis of his over the top, cinematic lifestyle were fascinating and I love to revisit them whenever we cover him. (Which is rarely so indulge me.) He owned a fleet of luxury cars, several yachts, a zoo worth of exotic animals and property around the world including two castles, 15 homes, and an island. Of course all of that excess led him deep into debt, so he’s paying it off by selling stuff and starring in movies that somehow get worse every year. Hence his latest movie with Vanessa Hudgens, 23, whom he seems to have developed an inappropriate and unreciprocated crush on. Vanessa and Nic are co-starring in a thriller based on true events in the Robert Hansen serial killer case called The Frozen Ground. (Which I was ready to dismiss as a POS, but it’s got John Cusack and Dean Norris from Breaking Bad in it, so it might be decent.) According to Star Magazine, Nic was hanging around watching Vanessa during filming and being so creepy that she asked producers to keep him off set unless he had scenes to do.

High School Musical actress Vanessa Hudgens had heard about Nicolas Cage’s reputation for freaking out younger costars. But she had no idea just how much he would make her squirm until the 23 year-old bombshell played a stripper opposite Nic, 48, in the new thriller The Frozen Ground, set for a Nov. 30 release. Nicolas unnerved the starlet so much that she begged directors to banish him from the set. “He constantly watched her and even showed up on days when he wasn’t filming to see her,” a friend tells Star. “Vanessa finally asked the directors to intervene and keep him away because she couldn’t concentrate on her performance.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, September 17, 2012]

That was the entire story in Star. If this story was about any other well known married male celebrity being inappropriate on set, like Ben Affleck or even Antonio Banderas (to use another guy that isn’t A-list) it would get much more play. But this is Nicolas Cage, and we know he’s a weirdo, so it gets a blurb on a page with another story about how Leonardo DiCaprio’s sex drive has gone down.

Who leaked this news, or did Star make it up? It’s about Nicolas Cage, which makes me think it has a grain of truth in it. Plus they call Vanessa Hudgens a “bombshell” and the source says she needs to concentrate on her performance. You draw your own conclusions. As if the subject matter weren’t creepy enough.

I really thought John Cusack was hot in this still from the film until I realized he’s playing the serial killer.