The only time Nicolas Cage turned down an easy paycheque: “Maybe I should have done it”
Few actors in modern Hollywood have taken on anywhere near as many paycheque gigs as Nicolas Cage. That said, no matter how bad they were, and a lot of them were complete and utter shite, nobody could accuse the deposed A-lister of phoning it in.
Even when Cage showed up in his fourth, fifth, or sixth bargain-basement straight-to-video thriller of the year, which happened a lot more than once, he always tried. Sure, his choices were often inexplicable and felt like they belonged in a completely different movie, but that’s the essence of the man himself.
The Academy Award winner does whatever the fuck he wants with any role he plays, and nobody’s going to tell him otherwise, because one of the main reasons why so many filmmakers were throwing shoddy scripts in his direction was in the knowledge that, because he’s Nicolas Cage, they might just get something special. In some cases, they didn’t, but in others, oh boy, did they.
Films like Mom and Dad, Mandy, Color Out of Space, Willy’s Wonderland, Arsenal, and Prisoners of the Ghostland weren’t expensive, and some of them weren’t particularly good, but the leading man’s gonzo approach to his performances single-handedly elevated them. Sometimes, all you need to turn a dreary flick into a watchable one is some good old-fashioned ‘Cage Rage’, and he’s never been in short supply.
However, despite notching 36 feature-length credits between 2016 and 2023 alone, the founder of the Nouveau Shamanism school of performance turned down what would have been not only one of the easiest jobs of his entire career, but one of the most lucrative, all because he was feeling self-conscious.
As an acquaintance of Jeffrey Katzenberg, the producer and DreamWorks co-founder, gave Cage first dibs on voicing the title character in an animated feature, and he knocked it back. “We were talking about Shrek, and I just didn’t want to look like an ogre,” he shared. “Maybe I should have done it, looking back.”
Chris Farley signed on instead, and after he passed away, Mike Myers ultimately stepped in. The four instalments in the Shrek franchise earned almost $3 billion at the box office, spawned a multimedia empire that spans TV specials, video games, theme park attractions, and more, and all he would have been required to do was stand in a recording booth, voice his lines, and then cash the cheques.
Cage ended up in dire financial straits after running afoul of the taxman, which necessitated his descent into the VOD doldrums. Had he voiced the titular ogre and told everyone to get out of his swamp, that may have been an issue he never had to face in the first place, since Myers is estimated to have earned around $50 million in salary fees alone, never mind any ancillary revenue streams.
If you believe in the multiverse theory, then there’s one out there where Nicolas Cage voices Shrek. What would he have done with the role? Something strange, no doubt, and he missed out on a small fortune by saying no.
