‘You can’t help but laugh’: Nicolas Cage recalls the line that made him an internet legend

Nicolas Cage can’t help but laugh at this line from Benjamin Gates and the Templar’s Treasure, a very solemn scene that he admits was very difficult to get the tone right!

Nicolas Cage memes used to hype his next movie with a crazy pitch!

This series stars Riley (Justin Barta) and Benjamin Gates himself. Both are located in the National Archives exhibit hall in Washington, D.C., in front of the United States Declaration of Independence. In case you don’t remember, here’s the scene in question, in its entirety, in French:

The extraordinary moment comes primarily from the contrast between the seriousness and reverence with which Benjamin Franklin Gates introduces the Declaration of Independence and concludes: “I’m going to steal it. (…) I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence.”

That’s what Nicolas Cage points out in this video Vanity Fairin which it reacts to this sequence:

I can’t say it without laughing. It’s been parodied so many times, I think even on Saturday Night Live. But it is impossible not to laugh! I think what makes it work is the seriousness with which Justin and I talk about it.

It is this contrast that will be recreated in the many Internet memes from which we can find a template here and an example here. These memes also contributed to the popularity of Nicolas Cage’s game show.

Benjamin Gates 2 will feature a similar scene in which Cage Announce this time : “I’m going to kidnap him. I’m going to kidnap the President of the United States.”

Still, the actress told Vanity Fair that she did everything she could to save the line: “How do you say something so ridiculous and try your best to be believable? It’s the first time I’ve seen that scene in years, and what I love is the positivity of the character. He believes it. He adores it. I find it. It’s fascinating.”

In this same order Treasure of the TemplarsRiley doesn’t understand much of what the declaration says, and Benjamin sums it up in broad strokes: “It means that if something goes wrong, the responsibility falls on those who have the capacity to act.”

In the context of the film, which was released in 2004 in the middle of the US war in Iraq, we can imagine that this sentence could take on a different meaning and justify American intervention in the Middle East. But did Benjamin Gates’ film really go that far?