Nicolas Cage is opening up about getting out of debt and what he had to do to pay back the $6 million he owed.

“I was over-invested in real estate. The real estate market crashed, and I couldn’t get out in time,” Cage told 60 Minutes. “I paid them all back, but it was about $6 million. I never filed for bankruptcy.”

Cage said that it was a “dark” period in his life but booking roles kept him afloat helping him pay off his debt despite the direct-to-video films he ended up doing.

“Work was always my guardian angel. It may not have been blue chip, but it was still work,” he added. “Even if the movie ultimately is crummy, they know I’m not phoning it in, that I care every time.”

This is not the first time that Cage talks about his financial struggles and how adamant he was about not filing for bankruptcy by giving it his all in the projects he landed.

“When I was doing four movies a year, back to back to back, I still had to find something in them to be able to give it my all,” he told GQ in 2022.

“They didn’t work, all of them. Some of them were terrific, like Mandy, but some of them didn’t work. But I never phoned it in. So if there was a misconception, it was that. That I was just doing it and not caring. I was caring.”