When you’re a Massive Talent like Nicolas Cage, you’re going to be inundated with more enticing film roles than you can possibly take on.
Turning down The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix, though, two of the biggest franchises of the 21st century? There has to be a good reason for an actor to do that.
In a new interview with PEOPLE, Cage revealed that it was because of his family he said no to acting in the two films. “First and foremost… there’s no version of Nic Cage in reality that doesn’t want to spend time with his children,” he said. “There’s no version of Nic Cage that didn’t put family first over career.
I turned down Lord of the Rings and I turned down Matrix because I didn’t want to go to New Zealand for three years or Australia for three years because I needed to be home with my son Weston, that’s a fact.”
He added: “So there is a huge disparity between that Nick Cage in Massive Talent and the Nic Cage sitting in front of you right now.”
Given that Weston is now 31-years-old, he probably doesn’t get in the way of Cage’s career decisions as much these days. He does still have a teenage son, the wonderfully named 16-year-old Kal-El, while he and his wife Riko Shibata are expecting a baby later this year.
Cage was just one big name reportedly offered a role in The Matrix, with Will Smith infamously giving up the role of Neo in order to star in Wild Wild West instead (just one of a few ill-informed decisions Smith has made this century).
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The actor is doing the promotional rounds for his intriguing new film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. He plays a fictionalised version of himself, who begrudgingly accepts a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a billionaire fan. When things soon take a strange turn, Cage is forced to become a version of some of his most iconic characters in order to save his wife and daughter.
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Check out the trailer for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent:
