It was just this year that Nicolas Cage announced that he only had three or four movies left in him before he would retire. But considering he has appeared in almost as many since then, we can’t help but wonder what he truly means. Thankfully, Cage has offered some clarification on what he meant and where that leaves the remainder of his career.
Speaking with The New Yorker, Nicolas Cage said of his impending retirement, “I did two or three very supporting roles [in that time]. So maybe three or four more lead roles. Maybe that’s more of what I was saying.” As for his most talked-about movie in years, Longlegs – which has one of the best marketing campaigns in recent horror memory – that won’t count towards his final tally because it’s a supporting role. On this, he even said, “It would have been a slippery slope [appearing too much on screen’. I think it could have lapsed into something almost too ridiculous. You don’t want to see that the shark is made of rubber, you know? You want the shark to be terrifying and keep it under the water for a lot of it.”
While we can probably expect Nicolas Cage to officially be retired probably by the time he’s 65 based on his own criteria, that doesn’t mean that will be the last we see of him, as he expressed doing more television, generally a medium he has shied away from. “I thought TV could be a dead end, and sort of the death of the Golden Age film star. I avoided it because it’s not why I really wanted to get into movies…So TV wasn’t on my mind. But then everything’s changed so much. I don’t know if it’s the same experience anymore. And I thought, I’ve always viewed myself as a student. Where am I going to learn something? Well, Broadway. I’ve never done Broadway.” Ghost Rider: The Musical, anyone…?
Personally, I’d love to see Nicolas Cage do some television. You could see him fitting into an anthology series like Fargo quite well (he already has the Coen connection through Raising Arizona) or even doing something smaller like Harrison Ford has done on Shrinking.
With such limited time for Nicolas Cage on the big screen before he retires, what do you want to see him tackle? Should he reprise a fan favorite role or round it out with more original performances?