One of Hollywood’s most prolific actors is eyeing retirement: Nicholas Cage, who’s getting ready to turn 60 years old, says he’s almost finished acting in movies.
“I may have three or four more movies left in me,” the Dream Scenario actor told Vanity Fair. “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 … I do want to get much more severe and stringent in my selection process … I want to say bye on a high note.”
Cage added that his father died at 75 and calculates he may have only 15 years left (“hopefully more”). “What do I want to do with those 15 years, using my father as the model?” the married father of three asked. “It occurred very clearly to me that I want to spend time with my family … I’m starting to cement my plan.”
That said, Cage said he’s open to trying other forms of acting, such as a television series, which he’s never done.
Cage has appeared in more than 100 feature films since his breakout role in 1983’s Valley Girl, and won the Oscar for best actor for 1996’s Leaving Las Vegas. He racked up six credits in 2023 alone (including a film titled, ironically enough, The Retirement Plan). His current comedy Dream Scenario is earning the actor some of the best raves of his career, and follows a highly praised performance in 2021’s Pig.
Cage’s pledge of “three of four more movies left” presumably doesn’t include his four upcoming titles listed on IMDB that are in various stages of production. Last month, Cage said he planned to slow down making movies after turning 60, but his new comments push that idea a bit further.
The move brings to mind director Quentin Tarantino’s pledge to quit filmmaking after his upcoming tenth movie, The Movie Critic.
Part of Cage’s latter-year acting surge was driven by the actor having to pay the IRS $14 million in back taxes in 2009. “I made the decision to work my way out of it,” Cage told The Hollywood Reporter last year. But I only did movies where I thought I could bring something authentic to them. I turned a lot of crap down.”
Whether Cage actually sticks to this plan remains to be seen. Cage told THR that he quickly gets restless in between projects, and is a better man when he’s working.
“I’m a better man when I’m working because I don’t want to be that guy that’s sitting by a pool getting bombed on mai tais and Dom Perignon,” he said. “I have been that guy in between jobs and it’s only fun for maybe two days and then you’re like, “I gotta get healthy.” So work has always been a place where my job is to get up in the morning, to work out, to do 5 to 8 miles on the elliptical, I lift weights, I look at the news, I feed all my animals and then call my boys. [When I’m on set], I’m focused, I’m working with other actors. I have a very clean life when I’m filming, and that’s important to me.”