With a career spanning decades, you are bound to have some ups and downs and Nicolas Cage is a perfect example. The 57-year-old actor was well-loved for the iconic movie National Treasure where he famously stole the Declaration of Independence but in recent years Cage seems to be turning out much less serious performances.

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With so many failures at the box office Cage has become a meme and viewers often laugh at his over-acted performances which is why you may find it surprising that Cage won an Oscar for best actor in the 1995 romance Leaving Las Vegas.

The film follows Ben, a very successful Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything due to his problem with alcohol. Ben travels to Las Vegas where he decides to drink himself to death but when he meets sex worker Sera he must decide whether to follow through with his decision.

The film did relatively well at the box office pulling in $32 million compared with only a $3.6 million budget and Cage’s authentic performance is a strong contributing factor to this which he was well rewarded for it. Cage won the best actor Oscar to beat out other heavy hitters such as Sean Penn in the thought-provoking Dead Man Walking, and Anthony Hopkins for his portrayal of Richard M. Nixon in the biopic Nixon.

Cage proved he is capable of great acting but as his career went on he continued to say yes to poorly written scripts which have led to him now becoming renowned as a bad actor who never turns down a role which spurred the creation of numerous memes about him.

Cage isn’t changing anytime soon and has said yes to a slew of upcoming projects including Renfield where he will play Dracula opposite Nicholas Holt as titular Renfield. However, at the same time as his scattershot work, he is also appearing in more critically-acclaimed work like Pig. It will be interesting to see if Nicolas Cage can turn his career around for the better and return to his place as one of Hollywood’s greats.