Nicolas Cage’s near 40-year career may be winding down. Or at least that’s what he wants us to think. The actor, who has become a punchline over the last few years, spoke to Complex about his new film, Primal, and says he’ll be transitioning away from acting in the future…
“Directing is something I look forward to down the road. Right now, I’m primarily a film performer and I’m gonna continue doing that for three or four more years and I’d like to focus more on directing.”
Cage will be turning his energies towards directing and producing through his Saturn Films label, so even if does step away from acting he’ll be plenty busy. That’s not going to be good enough for me. While I’ve taken my share of shots at some of his choices there is absolutely nobody who entertains like Cage. Whether he’s in a good or bad movie Cage always brings his best, and he works his ass off in sometimes three or four movies annually. My joke is that the first movie I see every single year is a lousy Nicolas Cage movie and that is almost always true.
When Cage finds the right material he can be as good as any actor. I’ll put his Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans up there with some of the best gonzo performances ever, and I don’t even need to talk about Raising Arizona, Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off and others. His recent turns in Mom & Dad and Mandy show that Cage has learned to embrace this latest career phase as a B-movie icon ala Bruce Campbell. He can roll with the punches.
Plus, now that I’ve interviewed him and we are such good friends he can’t go. There are too many years and too many movies left for it to end.
