Nicolas Cage Looking At Pedro Pascal / Make Your Own Kind of Music

About

Nicolas Cage Looking At Pedro Pascal, also known as Make Your Own Kind of Music, is an exploitable video and object-labeling meme template using a scene from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in which Nicolas Cage looks at Pedro Pascal's character suspiciously as the two drive in a car while Pascal absent-mindedly beams at him. The template became popularized on TikTok in February 2023 and is often used to illustrate how one party (represented by Cage) is angry over some sort of slight while the other person (represented by Pascal) is thrilled by their situation, implying the scenario is playing out like they wanted. The scene is usually scored by the song "Make Your Own Music" by Mama Cass.

Origin

In a scene from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Pedro Pascal's character offers Nicolas Cage LSD, which he takes. The scene then cuts to Cage looking confused and suspicious in a car while Pascal looks thrilled (shown below).

The scene began seeing use as a meme in mid-February 2023. The earliest known use was posted on February 18th by TikToker @gh0uliasux,^[1] gaining over 903,000 likes in two weeks (shown below).

Spread

The template continued spreading on TikTok over the following weeks, usually with similar setups where Pascal's character represents a person, typically the poster, being blissfully and happily unaware of the other person's suffering. On February 22nd, 2023, TikToker @rackety_ghoul^[2] posted an edit that gained over 167,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, left). On February 28th, user @thoughtlessapocalypse^[3] then posted an edit about constantly recommending One Piece, gaining over 15,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

The scene was also used in green-screen edits that placed the characters in various situations. For example, on February 27th, TikToker @ScaryMovieReview made such an edit over a still from Midsommar, gaining over 1.2 million likes in four days (shown below, left). On March 3rd, user @chiptuner then made an edit that placed the characters in Mario Kart, gaining over 618,000 likes in less than one day (shown below, right).

Nic Cage Reacts to Meme With Pedro Pascal

On March 6th, 2023, TikToker vespip posted a clip of Nicolas Cage talking about the meme on a red carpet event. During the inquiry, he said he liked that people were having fun with the scene, but otherwise didn't really understand why it was going viral (seen below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References