Nicolas Cage hasn’t had a great year or even a great decade. It’s been years since Cage’s name has even been said in the same sentence as a hit movie and much longer since he’s been associated with a good one. He’s having major tax trouble with the IRS and engaged in some of the strangest court battles going on right now. Andy Samberg has lampooned him hilariously on Saturday Night Live as a paycheck craving hack that’s borderline psychotic. And Cage himself has done nothing to convince people otherwise.
Just this past weekend he was apparently arrested for screaming at his wife on a New Orleans street corner, then screaming at cops. It’s another meltdown for an actor having too many of them these days (there’s footage of him screaming at strangers off the set of a sequel to Ghost Rider, which is shocking…that there’s going to be a sequel to the awful Ghost Rider). Meltdowns are probably the last straw for Cage if he can’t contain them. Actors make bad movies they put no effort into all the time—just ask John Travolta—but if you’re seen as unstable, that’s a different ballgame that can halt those fat paychecks immediately.
And yet I feel strangely bad for Cage. He’s become a hack actor that will literally do ANY movie if you pay him enough (this year alone he starred in the awful Season of the Witch and the God awful Drive Angry…two movies you’re excused for not remembering as no one saw them). He’s dangerously over privileged, yet still in tax debt for failing to pay proper taxes on some of the 15 houses he’s bought, AND the island he’s bought. [That’s right, Cage owns an island.] By all accounts he’s eccentric at best and a nutcase at worst. So why do I feel any sympathy for this guy who has made bad choices into an art form?
Because Cage is actually a talented actor. He’s divisive and not everyone thinks so, but the guy used to be able to make even a bad movie watchable just off the sheer force of his weirdness. Then there are some of the good movies Cage has been in and knocked it out of the park like Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, Adaptation, and Matchstick Men. In recent years I enjoyed him in Kick-Ass and thought he was great in Bad Lieutenant, so he still has a little of his former self in there somewhere.
Problem is: how do you save a good actor from himself? Cage just seems to be all about the paychecks at this point and getting paid for sleepwalking through pitiful roles in genre duds (Next, Season of the Witch, National Treasure I&2, Knowing, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, shit why list them all…there’s about 30 over the last 10 years). Cage has made so many movies—and so saturated the market with his brand of crazy—what could Cage even do that would shock us? He’s played drunk, high, OCD, twins, Elvis…every physical affliction in the world in both drama and comedy (sometimes within in the same movie).
He’s been in every type of genre from family film to bizarre black comedies. He’s played every type of role. He’s shown us every facial tic, hand gesture, and emotion a single actor can show us, so what can Cage do to save himself? It’s a great question because I honestly don’t know what would feel fresh at this point.
I think the freshest thing he could probably do is just go away. Cage has been starring in seemingly a movie month for the last 25 years, and I think the guy is probably overdue for a vacation. I know it runs counterintuitive to his tax troubles to not work, and also against his overall philosophy of just throwing everything at the wall in hopes something sticks. And that’s the point. He needs to disappear for about 5 years, and then come back strong in a couple of well chosen roles (I’m thinking probably a villain because we really haven’t seen him as many villains over his long, ubiquitous career and almost certainly a slower paced independent film where he taps back into his soul like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler).
It’ll remind people of what a great actor Cage is and make us do something we’ve never done with Cage before: miss him. But you can only be missed if you finally go away.
Nic Cage is a hot mess.
No, he can not be helped.
Not really it’s the middle of the end for him.