Nicolas Cage has opened up about his relationship with wife Riko Shibata.
Speaking in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, the 57-year-old actor revealed he thought the pair's relationship stood a chance after learning Riko, 26, kept flying squirrels as pets.
Recalling the moment, Cage said: "We met in Japan and I thought she was stunning when I met her. We had a lot in common.
"She likes animals, too, so I asked her, 'Do you have any pets?' And she said, 'Yes, I have flying squirrels.' She had two sugar gliders... I thought: 'That's it. This could work out.'"
The Vampire's Kiss actor tied the knot with Riko in February in an intimate wedding ceremony held at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. However, Tuesday's premiere was the couple's official red carpet debut together.
In a previous interview with Marc Coppola on his Q104.3 radio show, Cage revealed that he and Riko got engaged on a video call after being separated due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Per Insider, Cage stated: "She left New York and went back to Kyoto, Japan, and I went back to Nevada, and I haven't seen her for six months.
"We're really happy together, and we're really excited to spend that time together, so I finally just said: 'Look, I wanna marry you,' and we got engaged on FaceTime."
Shibata is Cage's fifth wife, and there is a 31-year age difference between the two. She is not the only woman that the actor has married in Vegas either, as a cursory glance at his dating history can reveal.
Cage's first wife was actress Patricia Arquette, whom he married in April 1995 and divorced in 2001. He then went on to marry singer-songwriter, Lisa Marie Presley, on August 10, 2002, and filed for divorce 107 days later on November 25, 2002.
The actor then got hitched to Alice Kim in 2004 and went on to have a son with her before separating in 2016. He then wed Erika Koike in Las Vegas in 2019, only to file for divorce not long after.
