Nicolas Cage has settled all his debts, he revealed in a new GQ profile. The actor’s much-publicized financial troubles led to him starring in a string of VOD movies, but he said that despite how it may seem, he never phoned any of his performances in. Cage is now witnessing a career comeback, which nearly resulted in him scoring an Oscar nomination for his performance in last year’s Pig.
Cage, in no uncertain terms, said that Disney essentially threw him under the bus at a time when he needed the studio's support the most. He had, after all, starred in two massively successful National Treasure movies for the Mouse House (not to mention the '90s hits The Rock and Con-Air), and was more than willing to return for a third. But when his second attempt at launching another Disney franchise with director Jon Turteltaub—2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice—failed, he said that the studio balked at the idea of having him return for another National Treasure film. Cage made it clear that he wasn’t blaming franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer. In his own words:
“I enjoy making movies like Pig and Leaving Las Vegas more than I enjoy making movies like National Treasure... When I talk about fair-weather friends in Hollywood, I’m not talking about Jerry Bruckheimer. I’m talking about Disney. They’re like an ocean liner. Once they go in a certain direction, you’ve got to get a million tugboats to try and swivel it back around.”
But after having lost his fortune on bad real estate decisions, Cage owed the IRS $14 million, and millions more to other creditors. To add to his woes, Cage said that he was spending $20,000 a month to keep his mother out of a mental institution. Determined to not declare bankruptcy and to pull himself out of the financial rut, Cage decided to take every role that came his way. In the years since going broke, he signed on to appear in forty-six movies, many of which were direct-to-digital releases. He said:
“The phone stopped ringing. It was like, ‘What do you mean we're not doing National Treasure 3? It's been 14 years. Why not?’ ‘Well, Sorcerer's Apprentice didn't work, and Ghost Rider didn't really sell tickets. And Drive Angry, that just came and went’… 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. They didn't work, all of them. Some of them were terrific, like Mandy, but some of them didn't work. But I never phoned it in. So if there was a misconception, it was that. That I was just doing it and not caring. I was caring.”
Cage settled the last of his debts a year and a half ago. Since then, he delivered an uncharacteristically understated performance in the acclaimed drama Pig. He will next be seen playing a fictionalized version of himself in director Tom Gormican’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which is scheduled to be released in theaters on April 22. His fans are also excited about Renfield, a revisionist horror-comedy in which Cage will play Count Dracula. It feels like the good old days might be coming back.