How Nicolas Cage avoided career death: “One of those magical moments”
If Nicolas Cage was capable of making anything that would be a career-killer, then the chances are exceedingly high he would have made it by now, considering the sheer volume of nonsense he lent his name to during his decade-long detour into the straight-to-video wilderness.
And yet, he emerged on the other side not only debt-free but completely rejuvenated, escaping from the looming shadow of financial ruin to embark on what might be the hottest streak of his entire career. No longer driven entirely by making the most amount of money in the shortest possible amount of time, Cage is an actor reborn who weathered a storm that would sink many lesser talents.
History has shown that many actors who descend into the depths of VOD genre flicks for an extended period of time never manage to restore themselves to former glories, but it wasn’t one of the many awful thrillers he was churning out at a prolific rate that was prognosticated as a disaster waiting to happen. Instead, it wasn’t only one of the best films of his entire career but the one that brought him to the Hollywood mountaintop and opened the door towards the next stage in his evolution. In the mid-1990s, Cage was the eccentric darling of independent cinema, but he’d never quite broken through and cracked the mainstream to a significant extent.
He was far from being a B-level player, of course, but he was nonetheless seeking the role that would drag him up to the next level. When he found it, those around him didn’t think it was the wisest idea, with the part of a self-destructive and alcoholic screenwriter losing everything and heading to Las Vegas for the express purpose of drinking himself to death, raising eyebrows among his Cage’s inner circle.
“There was nothing painful at all about the experience, and it just was one of those magical moments when all the elements came together perfectly,” he told Roger Ebert. “The irony was, when I made the movie, everyone said it was career death. I told them I’m never going to win an Academy Award anyway, so let me do this and just let me express myself the way I want to.”
Needless to say, the irony was there for all to see when Leaving Las Vegas did exactly what Cage said he was never going to do, winning him an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ on his very first nomination. Suddenly, he was more in demand than ever, which he swiftly parlayed into superstar status when his next three credits came in action-packed blockbusters The Rock, Con Air, and Face/Off.
Some were predicting the movie as the death of his career, but it ended up being the best thing that had ever happened to Cage at that point in his professional life, which is why it’s best never to listen to the doubters.
