10. He's An Academy Award-Winner
What's the one thing you need to garner absolute respect in Hollywood - at least amongst your peers? Yep, you said it: an Academy Award. And though people who have only ever seen Nic Cage in
Ghost Rider and
Next might be truly stunned to learn, the man actually has an Academy-Award for Best Actor sitting at home on his shelf (for his genuinely excellent turn in 1995's
Leaving Las Vegas). The point is, then (and it took viewings of many of his older films for me to realise this), that Nicolas Cage can act. And I mean
really act. And anybody who has seen
Leaving Las Vegas,
Adaptation., or Werner Herzog's recent
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, is likely to agree. What's obvious is that Cage simply chooses his moments, separating his roles into two categories: those performances which are actually worth investing time and effort into, and those which he considers to be disposable and are done for cash purposes. Anyway, the point is that this article doesn't work unless Cage can act: what perfect Hollywood star can't act, right? But we have confirmation that he can act, and there's an Academy Award to prove it. Leo DiCaprio got nothin' on Cage.