He's one of Hollywood's most eccentric, well-known actors, who's graced the silver screen for more than 35 years. But it seems as though Nicolas Cage is preparing to hang up the acting gloves and pursue interests behind the camera.
The actor whose work includes The Rock, Face/Off, Con Air, City of Angels, National Treasure, Gone in 60 Seconds and Lord of War says while he still enjoys acting, it's the behind the scenes action that he's enjoying more.
Speaking to The Blast: "In terms of producing and directing, yes, I'm getting back in production. My company, Saturn Films, is involved in all the movies I'm doing now.
"And directing is something I look forward to down the road because right now, I'm primarily a film performer and I'm gonna continue doing that for three or four more years and [then] I'd like to focus more on directing."
It will be a huge blow to fans who love seeing the 54-year-old take on interesting roles like Charlie Kaufman/Donald Kaufman in Adaptation and Edward Malus in The Wicker Man.
After being a part of nearly 100 movies and winning am Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and several nominations, he certainly hasn't been fading into obscurity.
He'll be in six - yes SIX - films this year alone, including Mandy, Looking Glass, The Humanity Bureau, #211, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies and Between Worlds. Cage will also appear in at least four projects in 2019 and 2020 - so there's plenty of Nic to go around.
The reason behind why he's happy to keep himself busy professional is a bit heart-breaking.
In that interview with The Blast, he said: "I have multiple reasons for wanting to work. One of them is, to be blatantly honest, I can be a little self-destructive if I'm not focused on my job.
"It's the difference between maybe having one bottle of wine versus two bottles of wine."
But don't lament his soon-to-be ended acting career as he hasn't ruled out picking up scripts even when he's well into what a normal person would call 'retirement age'.
Speaking to the Times: "I don't wanna be doing Pizza Hut commercials when I'm 75. I wanna be able to continue making movies whether I'm supporting or playing leads and whether I'm making movies that are deployed on video-on-demand or going into the cinemas.
"I just wanna continue working and acting, or film performance, if you will."
Phew!
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