Nicolas Cage to retire from movies (but might do TV)

Don’t do it, Nic! That thought came to mind this morning as I read a new, in-depth interview with Nicolas Cage in Vanity Fair, where the legendary star explained his plan to retire from movies. “I may have three or four more movies left in me,” he told the publication, explaining, “I do feel I’ve said what I’ve had to say with cinema…I think I took film performance as far as I could.”

However, while Cage seems to be closing the door on film acting, it turns out that he does want to give episodic TV a whirl, with him particularly impressed by Bryan Cranston’s long run as Walter White on Breaking Bad. “Maybe it’s time to look at the immersive streaming experience,” adding, “I don’t know. I have to look for the next step, and I haven’t found it yet.”

In recent years, Cage notoriously took on dozens upon dozens of roles to crawl out of a messy tax situation, but recently, he began to make his way back into the art-house scene. Recent films like Pig and Dream Scenario have earned him some of the best reviews of his career, with Cage noting that “I was trying to get closer to a more personal performance style where there’s less acting, if you will, and more being.”

All this begs the question, why would Cage consider retiring from films just as his stock in Hollywood seems to be rising back to where it was during his heyday? It turns out it comes down to feeling one’s mortality, with Cage noting, “I was taking stock of how much time I had left. I thought, ‘Okay, my dad died at 75, I’m going to be turning 60. If I’m lucky, I have maybe a good 15 years and hopefully more. What do I want to do with those 15 years, using my father as the model?’ It occurred very clearly to me that I want to spend time with my family.”

Indeed, no one can fault Cage for wanting to spend more time with his family, and it’s certainly possible that the actor’s plan to retire might mean that he only takes on roles sparingly. Yet, after 2024, the era of us getting 3-4 new Cage movies a year will be done. But before that happens, Cage still has a jam-packed 2024 ahead of him, with him starting work on his Lord of War sequel early in the year. He’s also got a few movies already wrapped, including the horror-thriller Longlegs by The Blackcoat’s Daughter director Oz Perkins.

What do you think of Cage’s plan to quit movies? Let us know in the comments.