Acting range capturing the essence of Nic Cage (6)
I believe the answer is:
aviary
'cage' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'acting range capturing the essence of nic' is the wordplay.
'acting' becomes 'a' (abbreviation, eg in job titles).
'range' becomes 'vary' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'capturing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the essence of' says to take the centre (essence can mean the middle or crux of something).
The middle of 'nic' is 'i'.
'vary' going around 'i' is 'viary'.
'a'+'viary'='AVIARY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for aviary that I've seen before include "Collection of birds" , "section of zoo" , "Place where birds are kept" , "Bird house" , "Large bird cage" .)