Nicolas Cage in his Academy Award-winning performance as a suicidal alcoholic in "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995).

Roger Ebert called Cage "fearless" - which was an understatement. In a career that includes more than 70 films, the actor has never failed to create characters that suck the oxygen from the room, whether it's in comedies ("Raising Arizona," "Moonstruck," "Adaptation"), dramas ("Bringing Out the Dead"), or big-budget action fare ("The Rock," the "National Treasure" films).

"I don't believe in the term 'over the top,'" Cage told CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan. "I believe in the term 'outside of the box.' Let's take chances, let's keep trying new things, and that's how you reinvent yourself. And that's how you stay fresh."

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

A nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola, Nicolas Kim Coppola grew up in Long Beach, Calif., where his family name meant little. A skinny kid, he was bullied by the boys on his bus until one day, when he found that acting just might save him.

"I put these cowboy boots on," he told Cowan, "I put these like sunglasses on, I put chewing gum in my mouth and my older brother's leather jacket, and I went on the bus with all this attitude. And they said, 'You're Nicki Coppola.' And I'm like, 'No, I'm Roy Wilkinson. I'm his cousin. I'm gonna kick your ass.'"

It worked; they stopped. "It was just the power of attitude. It was the power of committing to a character."

Cage's first film appearance, as Nicolas Coppola, was a bit part in the 1982 comedy "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," opposite Judge Reinhold. 

He kept running into an obstacle - the Coppola name - which made auditions difficult. "It wasn't so much tough being a Coppola as it was, I'm in an audition, trying to remember my lines for the audition, but all the casting people wanted to talk about was the wonderful movies my uncle made. 

"And by the time it was time for me to do the audition, I'd forgotten all my lines. I couldn't do the audition!"

So he changed his screen name to Cage, and the next audition he went on, for "Valley Girl," was a success. 

In the 1989 comedy "Vampire's Kiss," Nicolas Cage famously ate a cockroach.

"I was trying to get on the map," Cage told Lee Cowan. "I was trying to make a big noise, like punk rock, and say, 'Look at me. I'm here, and I want you to remember me.' I heard stories about Ozzy Osborne and all that, and I thought, wow, that's wild.  

"I could tell you it was the most disgusting, horrible memory I have of any experience on a movie set," he continued, "but people are still talking about. 

"Now, I did get a call from the animal rights people on the set. 'Well, excuse me, do you have a can of Raid in your house?'" he laughed.

In "Lord of War" (2005), Nicolas Cage starred as an illegal arms trafficker (inspired by Viktor Bout), who looks to make a killing following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  The film costarred Jared Leto, Ian Holm and Ethan Hawke.

In "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (2010), directed by Joe Turteltaub ("National Treasure"), Nicolas Cage played a sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan, out to stop one particularly evil nemesis (Alfred Molina) from destroying the world.

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman played 14th-century knights charged with helping to lift a witch's curse from the land in the 2011 supernatural fantasy, "Season of the Witch" (2011).

In "Joe" (2014), Nicolas Cage plays a Southern ex-con at war with himself, who becomes a father figure to Tye Sheridan ("The Tree of Life," "Mud").

Brooding and funny, it's a film full of quieter moments.

"I wanted to see how minimal I can be and get to the truth of the performance, truth of the character with emotion and with feeling," Cage told Lee Cowan. 

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan