Hollywood threw a colorful gathering Sunday night, with a "Salute to Nicolas Cage," at which the 37-year-old "Leaving Las Vegas" Oscar winner was presented the 16th annual American Cinematheque Award. "You're risky; you're a risky man," Jim Carrey, quoted by the Hollywood Reporter, told Cage, whom Carrey, 39, referred to as "Henry Fonda meets Robert Mitchum meets Salvador Dali with a SAG card." Emcee Samuel L. Jackson put a series of oddball questions to Cage, who was seated next to his companion, Lisa Marie Presley, 33. Did you own a shark? Jackson asked. Cage did. Did Cage once lead a Dracula lifestyle? He didn't. Did he once live in a castle? He did. Did he eat a live cockroach in "Vampire's Kiss"? Yes, and there was film footage to prove it. (A 60-minute edition of the evening will air Feb. 25 on TNT, which, like PEOPLE, is part of AOL Time Warner.) Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Franz, Dennis Hopper, Jon Lovitz, Elisabeth Shue, Jay Leno, Christian Slater and Cage's uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, spoke live, while John Travolta, Cage's "Face/Off" costar, appeared on video, mimicking Cage. Came his time to speak, Cage professed, "I'm really very, very confused as to who I am." He said that for years he thought he'd been born in the Chinese year of the dragon, which accounted for his dragon fetish, only to recently learn that he was actually born in the year of the bunny.