Nicolas Cage exposed details on some of his weirdest fan encounters (Picture: Getty Images)

Nicolas Cage revealed he used to get slapped by eager fans while at the airport.

The 59-year-old actor has recalled the bizarre trend inspired by 1987 romantic comedy Moonstruck, which he starred in with Believe hit maker Cher.

‘For the longest time, back from Moonstruck, I would walk to the airport and people just had a habit of saying: “Snap out of it!” from Moonstruck – the Cher snap out of it [line] – and I did get slapped a few times’, he told Entertainment Tonight.

He added: ‘Oh yeah, I did! And that, you know, it’s part of the job’.

When it came to why fans felt compelled to act in such a way, Nicolas joked they might have been aiming for a role.

He quipped: ‘I think maybe [they think] I’ll cast them in something. Who knows?’

The star explained that a scene from a movie inspired the strange act (Picture: WireImage)

He starred in Moonstruck with Cher (Picture: Getty Images)

The actor admitted he almost turned down the movie but agreed to take the role in a deal with his agent because he actually wanted to make 1989 horror comedy Vampire’s Kiss.

Nicolas previously told USA Today: ‘I made that movie on a deal with my then-agent Ed Limato. I was desperately trying to get him to say yes to me doing Vampire’s Kiss.

‘He said: “No, you’re not going to wear those stupid plastic things. I want you to look handsome! Do Moonstruck!”

‘And I said: “I don’t want to do Moonstruck!” I wanted to be punk rock – I didn’t want to do a schmaltzy movie about opera.

He admitted he wasn’t interested in being in the film initially (Picture: Getty Images)

Nicolas joked that he had actually been slapped a number of times (Picture: WireImage)

‘But I said: “If I do Moonstruck, will you let me do Vampire’s Kiss?” And he said OK.

‘The truth is, I love Moonstruck. Now that I’m older, I see the value in [it]. I haven’t seen Moonstruck in a million years, but I think it’s powerfully romantic and I love all the performances’.

Meanwhile, his enduring memory of the movie was him and Cher being ‘freezing in Brooklyn in the winter at night’.

He added: ‘It was that whole big diatribe about, The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves.

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‘That was my favorite bit of writing by [screenwriter] John Patrick Shanley, this powerful soliloquy.

‘That being said, our mouths were frozen and it was so hard to move. It’s very hard to act when you’re freezing’.

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‘Snap out of it!’