Nicolas Cage was able to pay off his debts with VOD movies but says he never phoned it in

Once upon a time, Nicolas Cage was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, but he also owed millions to the IRS and other creditors. Following a handful of box-office flops and unwilling to file for bankruptcy, Nicolas Cage began appearing in a lot of VOD movies. Although some actors who have turned to VOD movies seem to sleepwalk through their performances, Nicolas Cage never phoned it in.

Nicolas Cage is finally free and clear of his debt, and although some of the VOD movies he appeared in weren’t the best quality, the actor told GQ that he always cared about his work.

When I was doing four movies a year, back to back to back, I still had to find something in them to be able to give it my all. They didn’t work, all of them. Some of them were terrific, like Mandy, but some of them didn’t work. But I never phoned it in. So if there was a misconception, it was that. That I was just doing it and not caring. I was caring.

Thanks to those VOD movies, Nicolas Cage was able to finish paying off his debts a little over a year ago and it’s somewhat appropriate that the gig which enabled him to write that final check was The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. The comedy finds Cage playing a fictionalized version of himself who accepts a $1 million offer from a wealthy super fan (Pedro Pascal) to attend a party, only for that super fan to turn out to be a notorious drug lord. The movie is earning Nicolas Cage some of the best reviews of his career as it’s currently sitting at a perfect 100% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Although Nicolas Cage can now afford to pick and choose his projects a little more freely, he still plans on staying in the indie world. “I enjoy making movies like Pig and Leaving Las Vegas more than I enjoy making movies like National Treasure,” Cage said. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent will hit theaters on April 22, 2022.