Patricia Arquette recalls Nicolas Cage’s eccentric courtship involving J. D. Salinger

Nicolas Cage is often referred to as “eccentric,” or as Hollywood’s most “misunderstood” star with his extravagant real estate purchases, quirky taste in children’s names and sometimes baffling choice of film projects. So it may come as no surprise that the legendary actor would woo Patricia Arquette, the first of his five wives, in a unique but “mind-boggling” way.

In an interview with the New Yorker, Arquette, currently starring in the Apple TV+ series “Severance,” talks about how she met Cage at a deli in Los Angeles but wouldn’t go out with him, unless he obtained objects for her that are supposed to be unattainable.

Calling Cage’s effort to procure these objects “romantic,” Arquette said they included an autograph from the famously reclusive author J.D. Salinger and a black orchid from the jungles of South America.

It’s not entirely clear from the New Yorker interview when Arquette, now 54, and Cage, 58, first met. But a report said that the encounter occurred around 1987, when Arquette was 19 and trying to break into the movie business. Cage, on the other hand, had already established himself as a star, starring in the cult classic “Valley Girl,” working with the Coen Brothers in “Raising Arizona” and appearing in more mainstream, Oscar-worthy films like “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Moonstruck.”

“We met at Canter’s (Deli, in L.A.), and he asked me out,” Arquette recalled to the New Yorker. “He said, ‘Give me a quest.’ I thought he was joking. I gave him a list of all these things (to find), and he started doing them. It was mind-boggling.”

Arquette, who won the best supporting actress Oscar in 2015 for “Boyhood,” said she didn’t let Cage go on too long with his quest.

“Well, I stopped him pretty quickly, because I was supposed to marry him when he was done,” Arquette said. “We never even had a date. I was, like, ‘O.K., stop! Let’s just date maybe and not get married.’”

But Arquette said Cage succeeded in getting her the Salinger autograph. She didn’t explain how he obtained  the signature from “The Catcher in the Rye” author. As for the black orchid “from the jungles of Peru or Brazil or something … he spray-painted me an orchid,” Arquette said. “It was very romantic.”

Arquette and Cage began dating, and they married in 1995. She accompanied him to the Academy Awards when he won his Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas” in 1996, but the romance didn’t last. They reportedly separated after nine months of marriage, according to Hello. However, they continued to appear together in public and didn’t officially finalize their divorce until 2001, paving the way for Cage to marry wife no. 2, Lisa Marie Presley.

When New Yorker writer Michael Schulman pointed out that Cage’s quest may not have established the best foundation for marriage, Arquette replied, “I mean, who knows? There’s nothing like creativity and young love. That’s why we have a species.”

Before marrying Cage, Arquette had a son, Enzo, with musician Paul Rossi. After her divorce from Cage, she married actor Thomas Jane, and they became parents to a daughter, Harlow, before they divorced in 2011.

Meanwhile, Cage and Presley filed for divorce 107 days after they wed in 2002. Cage also was married for 12 years to Alice Kim, becoming a father to his second son, Kal-El (named after Superman’s birth name). He is currently married to his fifth wife, Riko Shibata, and they announced in January that they were expecting a daughter, who will be named Lennon August.

Recalling her courtship with Cage to the New Yorker prompted Arquette to reflect more on the different phases of life and getting older.

“I don’t really hate any period of the human experience,” Arquette continued. “I’ve dealt with a lot of death, and loving a lot of people through their dying time, and loving other people through their birthing time, and being at a lot of births, and being young and beautiful and not even understanding that. And then getting older and becoming invisible for a period of time, and then loving that. And getting wiser and knowing which battles to fight. I’m really loving this whole painful, joyful ride of life.”