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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Reading this, I was reminded of how Nicolas Cage is part of the Coppola family but changed his name, I was told, so that he could “make it on his own.”
I looked that up and it turns out to be a complete lie. He actually changed his name to conceal the fact that he was not making it on his own.
EDIT to clarify if this was confusing: he was given roles by his uncle Francis Ford Coppola. This is nepotism aka “not making it on his own,” but with special help from family. To conceal the nepotism, his name was changed.
From Wikipedia:
"To avoid the appearance of nepotism" sounds exactly like making it his own. You seem to have misunderstood. Are you an LLM?
The appearance of nepotism.
Nicholas Coppola got cast by his uncle, when any random 15 year old aspiring actor would never stand a chance.
He then changes his name so that other people in Hollywood will (hopefully) not say “oh he got that part because he’s Coppola’s nephew,” even if he absolutely got that job because he’s Coppola’s nephew.
I'm not disputing that he got his first few roles due to his connections, but changing his name absolutely would have distanced him from his relatives in other directors' eyes.
Nah, everyone in the industry would know about this. But random people on the street wouldn't. And that's what it's about when you want to be famous.
No it wouldn't/didn't, but it would/did to the masses.
You have misunderstood. He was in fact the beneficiary of nepotism: staring in his uncle’s films. But to keep this a secret, he changed his name. He was hiding the nepotism, not trying to avoid nepotism.
Walk a little more softly. You came off as confidently wrong there.
ive seen quite a few actors recently try to do this or trying to downplay thier nepotism.