New Western The Old Way follows former gunslinger Colton Briggs (Nicolas Cage) down a dark road of revenge. Colton Briggs has found a peaceful life, moving past his days as a notorious gunslinger in favor of becoming a family man. However, when his past comes calling in the form of the outlaw son of a man he killed many years ago, his wife is the one to pay the price. Following this horrible tragedy, Colton and his daughter, Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), set out to avenge the matriarch of their family at any cost.

The Old Way is Cage's first foray into the Western genre. Following many of the classic Western tropes, The Old Way sets itself apart by incorporating a compelling and unique father-daughter relationship. The Old Way also finds a fresh take on the classic revenge tale, with each of the characters feeling the consequences that come with a need for vengeance.

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Screen Rant spoke with Cage about his new Western The Old Way and what drew him to the Western genre and why the script reminds him of Charles Bronson as Harmonica. Cage explained how he finds the unique voice for each of his characters and praises the work of his co-star Armstrong.

Nicolas Cage on The Old Way

The Old Way Nicolas Cage and Ryan Kiera Armstrong

Screen Rant: Listen, I love a good Western, and this took me right back to my childhood. Westerns are one of the tentpole genres in American cinema. Why did you want to play in that particular sandbox, especially with this type of antihero type of character?

Nicolas Cage: Yeah. I'm with you about the Western. I grew up watching Once Upon a Time in the West, and my favorite western performance is Charles Bronson as Harmonica. I was always fascinated by his ability to convey so much and do so little. And there was an enigmatic, spooky quality to that character. When they sent me this script, that's immediately who I thought of. And I like characters that raise more questions than answers.

And I think that with this Colton Briggs character and his daughter Brooke Briggs, these are two social misfits that don't know how to fit into society. They don't know how to laugh at people's jokes. They don't know how to cry at funerals. They don't know how to feel love. And they both have a propensity towards violence. So I think for me, at the heart of it, it was a family drama about a father and a daughter. And they have to, through the experience of this road trip, learn to love. Yes, it's framed in a time and place and a wardrobe of the Old West. But to me, it's really just a simple family drama about two social misfits.

This movie really taps into the relationship between father and children with Colton and Brooke and James's motivation. What do you think is unique about that particular bond? And how did you tap into that with Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who plays your daughter Brooke?

Nicolas Cage: I was really in awe of Ryan. I thought she brought so much pathos, complexity, depth, maturity at her age to this character of Brooke. And it's not an easy ask to play a character that's approaching almost a robot, and then still have an audience feel for you. And I was in awe of her talent. And I felt paternal towards her, and I wanted her to be safe. But she's a very capable young lady. She's totally prepared, she's completely on time, she interacts well with the crew, and she's always on point at action. I felt like I was more of a fan than anything else.

You do such a great job of not only embodying these different types of characters, but really finding their specific voices for each one. Whether it's Colton Briggs, Spider-Man Noir, or even a heightened version of yourself, how do you find these different voices when you're developing these characters?

Nicolas Cage: I see myself as a student of film performance and I need to challenge myself. And I need to find things in my past, in my memories, in my imagination, in my dreams to get to a place where I don't feel I'm acting. I want to have it feel authentic, so that the audience is with me. And what I will say is I'm a student and I want to find characters that challenge me. Maybe they don't all work. But maybe when they do work, I will have learned something. Or I will have learned something even if they don't work.

The idea is to never stay comfortable, and that's what keeps people going, I think. I even asked David Bowie once, "How did you do it? How did you keep reinventing yourself?" And the wise man said, "Well, I just never got comfortable with what I was doing." And I took those words to heart. So when I have a project in front of me, I have to know I can bring something. But to answer your question, where does it really come from? And that's also a bit of a mystery. There's some magic to it. I don't really know.

I love you as Spider-Man Noir, and I'm hoping that we get to see you in Across the Spider-Verse. What are the chances that we'll see Spider-Man Noir, and you'll be revising that role one more time?

Nicolas Cage: You'd have to ask Sony. I don't know what's going on with that. No one's spoken to me about that. Ask them. I don't know. I really don't. I wish they would. I love Spider-Man Noir, too. I think that's a great character. Spider-Man's the coolest superhero. And then you combine that with Cagney and Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, come on, it's a great character.

About The Old Way

The Old Way Nicolas Cage

Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage stars in his first-ever Western as Colton Briggs, a cold-blooded gunslinger turned respectable family man. When an outlaw and his gang put Colton and his family in peril, Colton is forced to take up arms with an unlikely partner — his 12-year-old daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) — in this action-filled film that builds toward its fateful showdown with pulse-pounding suspense.

Check out our interview with The Old Way director Brett Donowho.

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The Old Way is in select theaters on now and will be available on digital platforms and VOD on January 13.