Nicolas Cage won Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas, playing a man drinking himself to death, and it remains among the most unguarded performances in American film.
He changed his name from Coppola to avoid the association and has taken an enormous number of roles since, some for tax reasons he has discussed openly, which produced a filmography of extraordinary variance.
The good work is very good. Raising Arizona, Adaptation, Bad Lieutenant and Pig are all performances by someone willing to look ridiculous in service of a scene.
Face/Off is the purest showcase, requiring him and John Travolta to impersonate each other’s performances, which both do with visible delight.
