I had gone on a bit of a tear for a while, exploring what I thought I could do with the boundaries or the limitations of film performance, and I had … - Nicolas Cage

I always say to myself, 'I never had a career, only work.' What I mean by that is sometimes — and I won't mention names — but when you get into this career-minded perception of one's self it can be a slippery slope, and it can lead to things where you start believing in your own mythos and you start taking yourself way too seriously. You become pretentious and then you fall into the realm of diva, and that's when mistakes happen in your personal life and on camera.

There’s a difference between remorse and regret. I don’t have any regret. And when I say that, what I’m trying to say is that I’m applying my mistakes to my present so that I learned to improve on myself and be a better man. And I do think every movie I’ve made that hasn’t worked has all led me to this place where I’m at now, where I can do a movie like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and I can tell the story with some integrity and authenticity to it. Everything happened for a reason. I have to look at it like that because that’s the healthiest and most positive way of looking at it.

Which is a word I don’t like anymore, ‘acting’. I sound like a pretentious fart for saying ‘thespian’ but acting now has become like lying. It sounds like I’m lying. If you’re a great actor, you’re a great liar. ‘Thespian’ seems more like it’s about finding some truth within and then projecting it for others to get it. At least, it does to me. But I’m not always on the same wavelength as everyone else.