'Leaving Las Vegas' Director Says Nicolas Cage Was Never Paid $100K Fee for Oscar-Winning Role

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/nicolas-cage-never-paid-100k-leaving-las-vegas-fee-mike-figgis-1235232968/

‘Leaving Las Vegas’ Director Says Nicolas Cage Was Never Paid $100K Fee for Oscar-Winning Role

Writer-director Mike Figgis reveals that and much more in an all-new episode of THR Podcast 'It Happened in Hollywood.'

BY SETH ABRAMOVITCH
OCTOBER 4, 2022 1:14PM

Nicolas Cage may have won a priceless Oscar for his turn as a suicidal screenwriter with an alcohol addiction in 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas — but that’s all he got. The actor was never paid the $100,000 he was promised to star in the film.

That surprising detail was revealed in a podcast interview with Mike Figgis, the writer-director of Leaving Las Vegas, who joined The Hollywood Reporter’s It Happened in Hollywood for that show’s third season premiere.

Figgis, too, was never paid the $100,000 budgeted for his directing fee.

“They said the film never went into profit,” Figgis says of Lumiere Pictures, which financed the $4 million film, which Figgis shot using handheld 16mm cameras on the streets of Las Vegas.

The film earned $32 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

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