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News movies & tv series 14 August 2024, 06:25

author: Pamela Jakiel

„Everyone Said it Was Career Death.” Nicolas Cage Was Warned Against a Role that Turned out to be His Greatest Triumph

For his unforgettable performance in Leaving Las Vegas Nicolas Cage won an Oscar, though everyone was convinced that the role would destroy his career.

Source: Leaving Las Vegas, Mike Figgis, Initial Production, 1995
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Nicolas Cage is a beloved actor, although his career can be considered quite tumultuous. Some of his most famous roles were created in 1990s: Con Air, Wild at Heart, City of Angels and The Rock. It was also during this decade that he played a role in Leaving Las Vegas and won his Oscar for it.

However, it turns out that no one believed that participating in Mike Figgis’s movie would benefit Cage’s career. As the star revealed in an interview with rogerebert.com, everyone warned him that the role in Leaving Las Vegas would mean career death.

It was so amazing how that worked out. We shot it so quickly, in just over three weeks, it just flowed out of everybody. […]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.

In Leaving Las Vegas Nicolas Cage gave an unforgettable performance as an alcoholic who decides to go to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. This role remains one of the most appreciated in Cage’s career.

As fans may know, after years of success Cage had a period in which he acted in lower-quality films. However, the actor has returned to first league thanks to roles in Pig, Dream Scenario and Long Legs.

Pamela Jakiel

Pamela Jakiel

Finished film studies, graduate of the Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University. Her master's thesis was about new spirituality in contemporary cinema. The editor of the Filmomaniak service since April 2023, supports the lead editor and the boss of all newspeople. She used to write for naEkranie. If she's not watching The Ninth Gate for the hundredth time, then she's reading books by Therese Bohman and Donna Tartt for the first time. She prefers gnosis over dread, dramas over horrors, Jung over Freud. She looks for symbolist paintings in museums. Runs long distances, and does even the longer ones on a gravel. Loves dachshunds.

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