Nicolas Cage claimed directors Christopher Nolan, Woody Allen and Paul Thomas Anderson stopped offering him projects after he turned down roles in their films.
The actor said David O Russell was the only director to approach him again after a rejection.
“David O Russell offered me a movie a million years ago,” Cage said on the New York Times podcast The Interview. “It was a good movie, and he offered it and I said no, and he’s the only director that I ever said no to who actually came back and offered me another movie.”
Cage stars in Russell’s forthcoming film Madden, playing the late football coach and broadcaster John Madden. The drama follows Madden’s career with the Oakland Raiders, his later broadcasting success, and his involvement in the creation of the Madden NFL video game franchise.
The film also stars Christian Bale as Raiders owner Al Davis, John Mulaney as Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, Kathryn Hahn as Virginia Madden, and Sienna Miller as Carol Davis.
“Most of them, they get their feelings hurt and don’t call you back. It’s happened a million times to me,” Cage said. “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.”
He said Nolan offered him a role in the 2002 psychological thriller Insomnia, though he did not specify which character he had been considered for.
The film, a remake of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name, stars Al Pacino as homicide detective Will Dormer and Martin Donovan as his partner Hap Eckhart who are required to travel to the Alaskan town of Nightmute to investigate the murder of a 17-year-old girl.
Robin Williams co-stars as Walter Finch, a crime novelist who becomes embroiled in a psychological cat-and-mouse game with Dormer after Eckhart is accidentally shot during the investigation.
As for Anderson, Cage only described it as “a very early movie”.
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“He’d shown me a short film with Philip Baker Hall, and we were going to do something and it didn’t work out,” he said.
Cage said his decision to work on Madden had a lot to do with Russell’s willingness to approach him again. “David did call me, and it showed a lot of class that he would call me back and invite me again,” Cage said. “And I didn’t want to say no to him again because I have great respect for his talent. And it was a beautiful experience. I enjoyed working with David. I enjoyed working with Christian, John Mulaney. But it was a big challenge.”
Cage is also set to star in Spider-Noir, Prime Video’s live-action adaptation of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir comics.
The series stars him as an ageing private investigator and superhero in 1930s New York, reprising a version of the Spider-Man Noir character he voices in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Spider-Noir also stars Lamorne Morris, Brendan Gleeson, and Abraham Popoola, and is expected to premiere in 2026.
Madden is scheduled to be released on Prime Video on 26 November 2026.
