Nicolas Cage confirms he likely wasn’t paid for leaving Las Vegas

Nicolas Cage at SXSW

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At SXSW earlier this week, Nicolas Cage agreed Leaving Las Vegas The writer and director revealed Hollywood Reporter‘s It happened in Hollywood podcast that he was never paid for the film that won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Cage, who was in Austin to promote his latest film, ArcadianTalk about the unpaid bill with Interested in tradeHe told the site’s reporter that he probably never got paid at all for the Mike Figgis-directed 1995 drama for which he won a Best Actor Oscar, marking a successful second act in his career.

“But I didn’t think about it,” Cage said. “I got to play the role I had to play for sure. There was no doubt in my mind that it was going to be a great experience and film. I wasn’t going to stop, whether they paid me or not, I was making the film.”

After winning an Oscar in 1995, he received huge paydays for his work in numerous action films, including… Con Air, Remove the face And the rock.

Figes was a guest Hollywood ReporterPodcast It happened in Hollywood to premiere its third season in October 2022, where he revealed he never received his $100,000 fee to direct the drama, which centers on suicidal writer Cage as he moves to the titular city and begins a romance with a sex worker (Elisabeth Shue).

“They said the movie never made money,” the director revealed of the film studio, Lumiere Pictures, which financed the $4 million film. Figgis used handheld 16mm cameras in low-budget productions and was often filmed on city streets without permits – in a single take. Both he and Cage admitted that this affected the performances of both heroes in a positive way.

Leaving Las Vegas It grossed $32 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.