The other night, I was trying to decide what to watch on late night television. I do not normally watch David Letterman or Jay Leno unless there is just someone I love appearing as a guest. Fortunately, for me, Nicolas Cage was on “Late Night with David Letterman” earlier this week. I just had to watch, but it was a different interview. Cage’s new movie, Next, has him playing a character who can see two minutes into the future. Nicolas said that while he could not do that in real life, he was able to hold his breath for two minutes when he was 12. He said he did not know if he could do it now, but he would try. While most hosts would have be mortified that their guest sit silent on air for two minutes, Letterman played along, showing a clip from Next. After successfully holding his breath for 120 seconds, Cage announced, “I’d like to see Spider-Man do that.”
Other than the release of his new movie, Nicolas Cage has also been in the news for another reason. A classic car buff, he got involved with the wrong classic car broker. Seller Peter Brotman actually swindled several clients in addition to Cage out of money, having sold such collectible cars as a 1964 Rolls Royce, a 1954 Jaguar, and a 1988 Aston Martin for them. He then kept the money to pay off his own debts. Nicolas Cage lost $300,000 in 2004 when he commissioned Brotman to sell three Ferraris and a Cobra. Brotman did not send Cage the full proceeds from the sale of the collectible cars. Brotman pleaded guilty to 14 counts of mail, wire, and bank fraud in the car scandal. In addition to being sentences to five years in prison, Brotman also had been ordered to pay $1.8 million to those he bilked out of money for the car sales.