Nicolas Cage is finally addressing the worst roles of his career — and the six million reasons he took them.
The Renfield star famously won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and became an A-list action star with films like The Rock (1996) and Face/Off (1997), only to suffer a career slump after the 2008 financial crisis ravaged the United States.
“I was over-invested in real estate,” Nicolas shared during a recent edition of 60 Minutes chronicling his comeback.
“It wasn’t because I spent $80 on an octopus. The real estate market crashed, and I couldn’t get out in time. I paid them all back, but it was about $6 million [£4.83 million].”
Nicolas said he moved to Las Vegas for the tax benefits and began cranking out several lacklustre films per year to repay his debts.
He recalled that his financial situation was “dark,” but that work became his saving grace — and that he successfully “never filed for bankruptcy”.
“No doubt, work was always my guardian angel,” he told the program. “It may not have been blue chip, but it was still work. ... Even if the movie ultimately is crummy, they know I’m not phoning it in, that I care every time.”
Critics certainly regarded films like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010), Outcast and Left Behind (2014) as “crummy.” They respectively received Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 40%, 4% and 0% and turned the former action star into more of an online meme.
Nicolas told The New York Times in 2019 that “the real estate implosion” had wiped out his savings and turned money into a “factor”. He also said the “one thing I wasn’t going to do was file for bankruptcy.”
Eventually, however, “the phone stopped ringing” entirely, he told GQ in 2022.
“It was like, ‘What do you mean we’re not doing National Treasure 3? It’s been 14 years. Why not?’” he said. “I’ve got all these creditors and the IRS and I’m spending $20,000 [£16,000] a month trying to keep my mother out of a mental institution, and I can’t.”
“It was just all happening at once,” he added.
Nicolas was famously forced to sell his Bavarian castle in 2009 and turn over a stolen dinosaur skull in 2015 that he’d bought for $276,000 [£222,000] in 2007.
But the actor seemed to have a positive outlook on the films he made to get out of debt. “When I was doing four movies a year, back to back to back, I still had to find something in them to be able to give it my all,” he told GQ.
He said that standout projects like Mandy (2018) were “terrific” experiences, and recently told Stephen Colbert that the film was one of his favourites.