Veteran of the screen Nicolas Cage is an accomplished performer with an Academy Award win and dozens of film titles under his belt, but he'd rather you not call him an actor. In a new interview with Variety's Awards Circuit podcast, Cage spoke at length about his career. While he's technically done a lot of acting, Cage explains that he isn't a fan of the word, as he feels it comes with a negative connotation.

“For me it always implies, ‘Oh, he’s a great actor, therefore he’s a great liar,’” Cage explains. “So with the risk of sounding like a pretentious assh*le, I like the word ‘thespian’ because thespian means you’re going into your heart, or you’re going into your imagination, or your memories or your dreams, and you’re bringing something back to communicate with the audience.”

In the conversation, Cage also touches on the perception that he takes on "over the top" roles at times. This is another case of Cage not really taking well to these kinds of specific terms, as he doesn't even quite understand what "over the top" means. As the thespian says, "Well, when they say that to me, I say, ‘You tell me where the top is and I’ll tell you whether or not I’m over it.’”

“It was my aunt Talia Shire who first said to me, ‘Naturalism is a style,’” Cage adds, noting that his unique role choices are all by design. “And I was also a big believer in arts synchronicity, and that what you could do with one art form you could do and another meaning. You know, in painting, for example, you can get abstract, you can get photorealistic, you can get impressionistic, why not try that with film performance?”

He goes on to say, "Stanislavski said the worst thing an actor can do is imitate. Being a bit of a rebel, I wanted to break that rule. So I tried with Wild at Heart, a Warhol-like approach to the Sailor Ripley character. In movies, like Prisoners of the Ghost Land or even Face/Off or Vampire’s Kiss, I was experimenting with what I would like to call Western Kabuki or more Baroque or operatic style of film performance. Break free from the naturalism, so to speak, and express a larger way of performance.”

This isn't to say there's not a place for more subtle characters in Nicolas Cage's career. Recently, he starred in the acclaimed drama Pig as a truffle farmer who goes on a journey to save his pet pig shen she is kidnapped. Cage refers to director Michael Sarnoski as "Archangel Michael," thrilled that the filmmaker saw the potential in Cage pulling off this role so well (Pig is Cage's highest-rated live-action role on Rotten Tomatoes).

“I knew after a couple of flops that I had been marginalized in the studio system; and I wasn’t going to get invited by them,” Cage says. “I always knew that it would take a young filmmaker who would come back or remember some movies I had made and know that I might be right for his script and rediscover me. And that’s why he’s not just Michael, he’s Archangel Michael. This wouldn’t be happening if he didn’t have the open mind to say, ‘Come with me.’”

You can catch Pig streaming on Hulu.