Content cage afraid to use the H word

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage is reluctant to say he is happy in his new marriage to a 20-year-old former waitress.

“I just want to say that I’m content,” Cage said in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, while promoting his new film National Treasure.

“If I say I’m happy, that’s too fragile of a word,” Cage said. “I’m afraid someone will take the happiness away.”

Alice Kim became his third wife this year. He was previously married to Lisa Marie Presley, but he split with her in 2002 after less than four months. His marriage to actress Patricia Arquette lasted six years.

The actor, who is twice his wife’s age, said he met Kim at a Los Angeles nightclub. On their first meeting, she abruptly left after chatting for just five minutes. Cage said he wrote her a note asking why she walked away and he gave her his phone number.

He said he then invited her to join him in a visit to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. “She said sure, but I’d have to get her home by 11 o’clock,” he said.

Cage said they flew to Arizona and then took a helicopter to the Grand Canyon. They listened to Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries as the helicopter flew through the canyon, he said.

The actor said he packed a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine in a backpack, and they hiked around the canyon.

He also said that he got Kim home by 11pm “I was a gentleman about it,” he said.