Prior to the release of Massive Talent in 2022, Nicolas Cage had not appeared in a major global film for a whopping 11 years. It was a time when the actor shot some gems (e.g. Pig, Mandy, Joe) but also starred in loads of direct-to-video junk. Part of the network laughed at him. But many – like the author of these lines – also defended Nicolas Cage for putting his heart and soul into even the worst films and not, like some other colleagues, just collecting a salary.
That’s exactly what Nicolas Cage explained in a portrait of the TV magazine . It was a “very dark” time. After the real estate bubble collapsed, he had $6 million in back taxes, because he invested too much in houses, castles and more. But he didn’t want to take the easy road.
He proudly explains that he has never filed for bankruptcy. Instead, he accepted many, many offers to earn the necessary money and pay off the debt. But this work has also helped him in other ways.
Every movie is important to Nicolas Cage
“Work has always been my guardian angel”, he explains in the TV report and adds: “Maybe it wasn’t a top job, but it was still work.” And also in these films he does not want to accept negative internet reactions to his own work. Because “even if the movie ended up being bad,” he didn’t just work towards it. “They knew I cared every time.”
Nicolas Cage has previously explained that he took on roles because he had debts to pay off, but still tried to do his best. the magazine he revealed in 2022 that these roles had always been important to him.
Even then he indicated that the direct-to-video phase was a difficult time. He couldn’t explain why “all of a sudden the phone stopped ringing”. When asked, he was often shunned until he realized he was no longer in demand after box office disappointments like “Magician Duel”, “Ghost Rider”, or “Drive Angry”.
How “dark” the time really was, which was also marked by personal fates such as concern for his seriously ill mother, who passed away in 2021, and how the consecutively shot, sometimes quite bad films save Cage because the work on his “guardian angel”, but are now a remarkable revelation.
Nicolas Cage: “Pig” is my best movie!
Incidentally, in the current interview, Nicolas Cage also repeats the statement that “pigis his best movie. He counts this on top of his Oscar-winning role in “Leaving Las Vegas”. In the meantime, a completely different role will soon be seen in the cinema: on May 25, 2023, “Renfield” will start with the cult actor as the legendary vampire prince Dracula.