Nicolas Cage claimed that Christopher Nolan and other A-list directors would not work with him because he had previously turned down their projects.
The 62-year-old actor co-stars with director David O. Russell on his next film, Madden, in which he plays legendary football manager John Madden, and said he was the only director who approached him about working with him again after he had said no to his previous film.
Mr. Cage claimed that Mr. Nolan did not return his phone calls after giving him a copy of the 2002 film “Insomnia,” starring Al Pacino and the late Robin Williams.
“Most of them don’t call back because their feelings are hurt,” he said in a Q&A with The New York Times published Saturday. “It’s happened to me a million times.”
In addition to Nolan, Cage also claimed that Paul Thomas Anderson and Woody Allen were directors he no longer wanted to work with after Nolan turned down the project.
“They don’t call me back,” he claimed. “Paul Thomas Anderson’s films were very early films. He showed me a short film with Philip Baker Hall, who was in ‘Hard Eight,’ and we were trying to do something and it just didn’t work out.”
“Anyway, David called me and for him to call me back and invite me again was very classy. I never wanted to say no to him again because I respect his talent so much,” he added.
Cage wouldn’t reveal which Russell film he turned down, but said it was from “a million years ago.”
“It was a good movie. He offered me and I said no. He’s the only director I said no to who actually came back and offered me another movie,” he said.
Page Six reached out to Nolan’s representatives for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
“Insomnia,” a psychological thriller that follows two Los Angeles homicide detectives as they investigate a murder in Alaska, received critical acclaim and was a box office hit, grossing more than $113 million worldwide.
In addition to his star-studded cast, director Nolan is known for working with the same actors over and over again, including Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Hardy.
Nolan, 55, recently defended his casting in the long-awaited “Odyssey,” which opens on July 17, and specifically defended his casting of musician Travis Scott as the Bard in his adaptation of the ancient Greek epic.
“I cast him because I wanted to nod to the idea that this story was passed down as an oral poem, similar to rap,” Nolan explained to Time magazine.
