10) Nicolas Cage
Do you even remember a time when Nicolas Cage was, like, a respected actor? I have to say, it seems like part of a distant memory, but his filmography begs to differ. As recently as 2009 he was receiving awards for Bad Lieutenant, and he has earned two Academy Award nominations for Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas, respectively, receiving the win for the latter film. He’s now known for dumb films like Ghost Rider but even in most of the horrible projects he signs on for, he brings a fascinating element to his roles. His acting in Kick-Ass was completely nuts, and I have no idea what he was going for exactly, but did it work ultimately? I think it kind of did. But I’m also weird.
It’s too bad he’s in so much debt that he basically has to take the stupidest movie parts to pay off enormous tax liens and odd purchases like dinosaur skulls. The price of fame has been costly to Cage, but it seems like that’s the case because he’s impulsive and maybe a bit of a hoarder and probably has a lot of other weird psychological stuff going on that I don’t care to know about. He can star in the worst movies to pay for his 9 Rolls Royces all he wants—the work he did in The Wicker Man is, to me, priceless.
