Con Air is one of the many great action movies to come out of the 90s. That’s a movie that delivers that pure ‘90s movie magic with its over-the-top ridiculousness of everything. The 1997 Simon West-directed film is such a blast to watch, and Nicholas Cage made sure to add his own flare to the story.
During a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Cage revealed one thing that he brought to the film so that he could deliver one of the film’s most quotable lines. He introduced the stuffed bunny to the story so that it would lead him to say, “Put the bunny back in the box.” He also explains that this addition was inspired by the films of Clint Eastwood. Cage said:
“[Y]ou see these adventure films with these big stars like Eastwood, ‘Make my day,’ and I thought, how can I take that tradition, make the ‘make my day’ so ridiculous? What can I come up with that will become my ‘make my day?’ Bunnies are kind of funny. Well, I’m bringing a bunny to my daughter — that was another idea I put in — and that’s why I had the bunny. ‘Cause I wanted to say that line, ‘Put the bunny back in the box.’ It’s absurdity at its finest, but […] if you sell it with genuine emotion and real determination, like this is the most serious thing in the world — and it is, because he has to give it to his daughter who he hasn’t seen in six years. It’s serious, he means it, but it’s ridiculous, and that’s what I love about it.”
I love that he calls this line of dialogue “absurdity at its finest,” because it is, but it still worked so well! It perfectly fits in with the type of story that the movie is telling! It’s dialogue like that that made 90s movies so much fun to watch!
