Adaptation: The dream team

Nicolas Cage and Charlie Kaufman, the star and writer of 'Adaptation', were nominated for Oscars this week. Charlotte O'Sullivan met them, and the film's director Spike Jonze, just after they heard the news

Nicolas Cage, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman are in town to talk about Adaptation. Waiting to meet them, I discover that Cage and Kaufman have just been nominated for Oscars; Cage for best actor, Kaufman for best screenplay based on material previously published. The PRs are buzzing. The TV, blaring out Sky News, shows Cage grinning wildly. His agent darts in ahead of me, desperate to get a quote for general use. This is the eye of a mini-storm and the air is absurdly electric.

It's especially ironic, because Adaptation – a crazy-mazy comedy even better than Jonze and Kaufman's last collaboration, Being John Malkovich – is about this kind of hubbub: the desire to wow the film industry, to produce a work that gets everybody talking, but to do so without losing your soul. Its production history is complicated, so pay attention. Last year, Kaufman was asked to adapt a non-fiction book called The Orchid Thief, written by the New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean; a book about flowers, and passion, and a Florida native called John Laroche (the thief in question), who'd somehow managed to entwine the two. Kaufman loved the book's originality – but its lack of structure drove him crazy. He went crazy, and for five months couldn't write a thing.

Finally, having missed several deadlines, he decided to bring himself into the story, and invented a twin brother for himself, Donald, also engaged in trying to write a screenplay. Where he, Charlie, is all Woody Allen agony and self-doubt (he thinks he's too fat, too bald, too sweaty, too everything), happy-go-lucky, socially successful Donald settles down with Robert McKee's book of screenwriting rules and instantly coughs up a hit.

Meanwhile, Charlie becomes obsessed with finding out more about Orlean, and Donald, trying to help, accompanies him to New York. After interviewing Orlean – as Charlie – Donald decides her answers are way too pat. She's about to go to Florida, and he suggests they follow her... Bear in mind, at this point, that Donald gets a (real-life) credit as co-author of Adaptation. Where does Charlie end, and his brother begin?

Adaptation, then, is and isn't about what Charlie Kaufman went through to write this script. The central characters (except Donald) are all based on real people; but much of their behaviour has been invented, and they're played by stars. Cage is achingly convincing as both Charlie and Donald, Meryl Streep makes a juicy Orlean, Chris Cooper is sublime as Laroche (Streep and Cooper have been nominated for their supporting turns). We believe these people are "ordinary", which makes it all the more surreal when Orlean tells Laroche that her book is going to be made into a film. She asks who he'd like to play him. "Who's gonna play me? I think I should play me!"

So here I am, introducing myself to the real-life Cage and Kaufman and Jonze. Cage, 39, is huge, covered in make-up and dressed in a sharp black suit that offsets his chunky gold bracelet and watch. Kaufman, 44, is sitting cross-legged on his chair, a tiny, hobbity creature with pointy ears and a head of curly hair that rears back, as if alarmed, from his scalp. And Jonze, 33 – famous, until Malkovich, for directing great pop videos, marrying Sofia Coppola and being the heir to the Spiegel mail-order catalogue fortune – he could be a preppy student, all neat white socks and plastered-down hair. The three insist on being interviewed together. But they certainly don't look like a "team".

I ask Cage and Kaufman if they feel guilty about poor Jonze, the only one overlooked by the academy. Cage: "You know, he's a great director." Kaufman: "I'm just so happy to have had two chances to work with him." Cage: "He cares so much about the truth of his actors." Kaufman: "And story." Cage: "Absolutely."

This really doesn't sound like a "pat answer". No, siree.

Do they rate the academy? There's a stunned silence. Then Kaufman murmurs: "It's not the work, it's not about the work." So might he ignore the whole thing? He gulps: "I don't intend to... not show up. But..." Cage decides to lend a hand. "You have to learn to be in the now, in the moment, and not worry about the future or the past. If you give yourself over to wanting, and not getting, then it leads to sadness."

I don't think Zen is really Kaufman's style. "I would have been really happy if this film hadn't got any Oscar nominations," he says, wiping his forehead. "If you start taking it too seriously, you start striving to get an Oscar. Which is ridiculous, it's dangerous, it's corrupting."

But this is what everyone says, and yet they're shattered when they don't win. Look at Scorsese, who's never got over being denied an Oscar for Raging Bull. Jonze pipes up: "Everyone likes acknowledgement. It's the business we're in. There's so much emphasis on it. No one really knows who they are. And how good they are. Even Scorsese, apparently. You know, I wondered about that, too." Kaufman can't contain himself: "Raging Bull will always be Raging Bull. Regardless." Malcolm McDowell," says Cage excitedly, "gave one of the greatest rebellious teenager performances ever, in A Clockwork Orange. Which no one ever noticed. Or even Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now." He checks his watch. "Still, it's nice to be included."

We move on to the difficulties involved in having Cage play both brothers. Cage says they were utterly distinct in his mind. "I once read that women like a man who has a flat stomach and is confident. Well, Donald doesn't have a flat stomach, but he is confident, he likes who he is in the world..." Kaufman chips in, "and smiles." "And smiles," repeats Cage, actually smiling, which makes his peculiar, exaggerated face suddenly beautiful.

In rehearsals, Cage and Jonze improvised scenes with Charlie's "mum" (who he phones at the end of the film). I ask Cage if he has a mental picture of this woman and he starts to say something, then swivels round to Kaufman and says anxiously: "Am I able to say that?" Kaufman shrugs. "Well," Cage takes a big breath, "I think she played favourites. She liked Donald a lot." All three laugh, Kaufman hysterically.

"Charlie's definitely the older brother," says Cage. "Maybe he came into the world just two seconds earlier. But I believe that two seconds means something. I certainly know in my own family – I'm very aware that I'm the youngest..." (He has two brothers.) He gives a practised laugh. "And you know, they like to remind me of that fact."

It's so peculiar, I say, talking about "Charlie", while Kaufman is actually sitting there. "Oh," says Kaufman, wiping his forehead again, "it's just like a story now. I was thinking about this the other day. There's this desperation portrayed in the movie, which involves the character's inability to write this script, but actuallythe desperation was so much greater. I didn't know if it was going to destroy my career – this script. But I can't remember that experience now. It's all different, because I know the movie got made..."

Jonze nods. "I get very used to talking about Charlie and Donald, but when I talk like that, I'm picturing different Charlies in my head. And I'm getting used to it, though one of the Charlies is right here. And the other," he points at Cage, "is right there."

Cage agrees, "It gets a little trippy to talk about it."

All this may sound horribly indulgent; self-referential musing gone mad or, worse, corporate. And yet, if some of this "tripping" feels prepackaged, just as much feels real.

Jonze notes that they decided not to use close-ups of Cage's hands in the movie, "because he has these long fingers, these really beautiful hands..." Kaufman, who's been looking wistfully out of the window, suddenly exclaims: "And Charlie has ugly hands!"

"It was just because we played the part heavier," says Cage apologetically, "so my hands didn't fit." The boom operator, Larry, turned out to have more appropriate mitts: "He bites his nails incessantly." They also thought about using the make-up artist's toes. "We were looking for someone with crumbly toenails," says Jonze. "Yeah," adds Cage, "real gnarly."

Kaufman is helpless with laughter. It occurs to me that he always laughs at other people's jokes. Jonze tends to smile. Cage, according to his mood clock, looks fascinated/bored/stricken.

Both Cage and Jonze say it helped that the real-life Charlie and the fictional one have such different neuroses. Except for the sweating, I say.

"Yeah," murmurs Kaufman, "I am sweating, it's hot in here." I nod, though the room is as cold as a fridge.

Jonze to Kaufman (concerned): "You're sweating?" Jonze to me (amazed): "Did you just point at him and say, 'You're sweating'?" Cage (protective): "I don't see any sweat." Me (sweating): "I said 'the sweating!'" Jonze (contentedly): "I see."

Kaufman (firmly): "I do sweat. I don't always sweat. But I do sweat now. You know, some actresses are great at crying." Cage (clearing his throat): "You see, we didn't want..." Jonze: "He told me once, 'I can make myself sweat. I just open my pores...'"

The laughter stops, and Cage gets to say his piece. "We didn't want it to be about obesity either. We were very careful about how much weight he should carry. So you could relate on some level."

I don't think to ask why we couldn't relate to a really fat man. I note, instead, that it was Charlie's baldness that made him most vulnerable, this oval patch among his frizzy orange curls. Cage chuckles. "Well, I have this French poodle, which is this apricot colour, and there's some hair loss, around the coat. Charlie's hair sort of reminded me of that." "Apricot?" says Jonze doubtfully. "Yeah, apricot-coloured," says Cage, suddenly looking very much the younger brother, eager to be affirmed.

I note that in Britain ginger-haired people are very sensitive to slights. Cage's face falls. "I don't think that was anybody's intention," he says gravely.

Jonze grins. "I think of the hair as more strawberry blonde, or even warmish brown." Kaufman nods: "Golden brown." Cage (sadly): "You wouldn't say it was sort of apricot?"

I say I agree with Cage and Jonze chuckles: "Now you're going to get us in trouble with all the ginger-haired people!" The PR pops her head round the door. Cage, having checked his watch, buries his head in his hands.

One more question. What was the most stressful scene to write, direct and act in? Jonze (cheery): "Start with the writing, maybe." Kaufman (cross): "No! Don't start with me. I have to think about it! I don't know what the answer is immediately."

Cage, perking up, says it was the scene in New York where he has to play a furious Charlie, convinced that his brother has "embarrassed" him with Orlean. And then, just after, switch to Donald, singing "Happy Together".

"We really worked ourselves into frenzy over that one," agrees Jonze. "It's like being a light switch," continues Cage. "It's like it's New Year's Eve, and you're not feeling so hot about yourself, or the new year, and someone says, 'OK! It's midnight! Be happy!'"

I notice that Kaufman is watching Cage, fascinated. I ask him if he ever wonders if this whole "thing" – being nominated for an Oscar, having Cage play him in a movie – might be a dream. And that any moment now he's going to wake up and be told: "This script is unusable! It's narcissistic twaddle!"

"Yeah," Kaufman says, with a sigh. "I don't know what's real. And what's not real. So I guess it's certainly possible that this isn't real."

And with this, Cage leaps to his feet, shakes my hand and strides off, saying: "I've just got to go..." Kaufman and Jonze have a stretch.

"I hope that wasn't too bad," says Jonze. I say it was intimidating at first, having to interview all three of them. "I've never thought of it that way," says Kaufman. "I'm always so nervous that I forget it must be hard..." he points at my sofa, "sitting there."

Cage is an international superstar and a member of the Coppola dynasty; Jonze is a billionaire and a Coppola by marriage; Kaufman is a writer. They want to appear like a team. And just about pull it off.

'Adaptation' is released 28 February