Nicolas Cage is back in the spotlight with his first major TV gig by reprising a new version of Spider-Man Noir in the Prime Video series “Spider-Noir,” and is doing press for the show while doing his regular insightful reflections on his acting career, including meaty roles and directors that got away from him, including a key part in Christopher Nolan‘s “Insomnia.” He’s under the impression that turning down certain filmmakers has directly impacted their potential to work together in the future.
Adding to that group of scorned directors are Best Picture/Best Director Oscar winner, Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”), and Woody Allen, who won’t take his call, potentially after similar circumstances as with Nolan. “Most of them, they get their feelings hurt and don’t call you back. It’s happened a million times to me,” Cage told New York Times podcast The Interview. “It’s happened with Christopher Nolan, it’s happened with Woody Allen, it’s happened with Paul Thomas Anderson. They don’t call me back.”
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Cage also briefly teased the would-be Anderson project, “He’d shown me a short film with Philip Baker Hall, and we were going to do something, and it didn’t work out,” That tiny clue would give us the impression this might have been Anderson’s underrated 1996 gambling character-driven drama “Hard Eight,” although unclear if he was wanted for the John C. Reilly part as Baker’s out-of-luck protege or a smaller part like the one played by Samuel L. Jackson. PTA famously had to fight like hell to keep Baker in the lead role.
You could imagine Cage playing either lead role in that one. Al Pacino‘s role of a conflicted cop trying to hunt down a serial killer, which was one of Robin Williams‘ best post-Oscar win performances. But, considering Cage’s perspective, on paper, the subject matter might have been a little too close to what he had done in the Joel Schumacher snuff-film noir “8mm,” and “Insomnia” was a tweaked remake of the Erik Skjoldbjærg-directed Norwegian original that starred Stellan Skarsgård.
When we look back, the 2000s were an interesting time for Cage as he was stretching his action star legs and had even co-starred with Angelina Jolie in the 2000 film “Gone In 60 Seconds” (remake of the 1974 movie) about a group of California car thieves, which was sort of the proto-“The Fast & The Furious.” Specifically, in 2002, Cage led John Woo‘s Pacific theater WWII film “Windtalkers” (exploring the contributions of the Navajo Code Talkers), his feature directorial debut “Sonny,” and played twins in Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman film “Adaptation,” the latter earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination. So, with that in mind, you could maybe see why he would have turned down Nolan, as he was busy; three movies coming out in a single year isn’t a very common thing.
Of course, Nolan was able to chug along with the crime thriller (considered one of his smaller gems alongside “Memento“) and now has the blockbuster Greek epic “The Odyssey” arriving in July. You can watch that full exchange with Nicolas Cage below as his Marvel series “Spider-Noir” (The Playlist has posted our review of the show) arrives this week on Prime/MGM+.
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