After amounting an almost legendary amount of debt from years of lavish spending on dinosaur skulls and castles, Nicolas Cage got to work knocking out a non-stop parade of video-on-demand movies. While the common conception is that these type of films were merely “paycheck roles,” Cage has been adamant in recent interviews that he’s proud of the work he did and “never phoned it in.” In fact, the iconic actor is now saying that he’d easily pit his VOD work against the early years of his career when he became a blockbuster star.
It’s a pretty bold claim, but it all comes down to Cage wanting it known that, despite what people think, he cared about every role. Via Rolling Stone:
I think that I did some of the best work of my life in that so-called “direct to video” period. Massive Talent was in that group. Mandy was in that group. Pig, Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleans, Joe, Mom and Dad, Color Out of Space — they were all in that group. The Runner I thought was terrific. I’ll put any of those movies up [against] the first 30 years. If there is a misconception, it’s perhaps overlooking that there was a genuine commitment to performance.
Cage took things a step further by saying that the constant work made him a better actor. “It was the best workshop, the best acting class I could have,” he said. “I think it really was practice. I felt it made it so much easier for me to access my emotional content or my imagination. It was at my fingertips because of the training and the constant work.”
That said, Cage understands if people have different opinions about his VOD output. “All art is subjective. People are open to their opinions and their interpretations. Whatever they want to take from it, they’re not wrong.”
(Via Rolling Stone)