"The truly great composers produce more masterpieces than the others, mainly because they produced more work overall. What distinguished them was not effortless genius or leisurely perfectionism, but relentless productivity." - Mark McGuinness

Nicolas Cage and Daniel Day-Lewis have a fair amount in common.

Born within less than a decade of each other (Cage was born in 1964, Day-Lewis in '57), both are among an elite few to have been nominated more than once for a Best Actor Oscar, each with a single win to his credit.

Day-Lewis became one of the most promising talents in British cinema in 1985, the year which saw the release of both A Room With A View and My Beautiful Laundrette, featuring two very different performances.

Cage had a similar double-header to kick-start his career in 1987, with Raising Arizona and Moonstruck, two classic films, with two classic (and, again, very different) Cage performances at their center.

Day-Lewis has worked with heavyweight directors like P. T. Anderson, Michael Mann, Jim Sheridan, Stephen Frears, James Ivory, Richard Attenborough, and Rob Marshall, while Cage has been directed by the likes of Werner Herzog, David Lynch, the Coen brothers, Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott, Brian De Palma, John Woo, and Spike Jonze (and both have been in Martin Scorsese films). Both actors are particularly noted for their explosive, energetic, smoldering, manic, and often very physical performances.

Daniel Day-Lewis is a virtually indisputable acting god, considered by many to be one of the best--if not the best--film actors in history, frequently placed alongside the likes of Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. And rightly so.

Nicolas Cage I commonly hear described as "the worst actor ever".

What happened?

Well, in brief, Nicolas Cage has been in some pretty terrible movies. Let's face it--you're not going to find G-Force or The Wicker Man on Daniel Day-Lewis' resume.

Day-Lewis has twenty-seven credits on IMDb to Cage's sixty-three (with Day-Lewis' first credit appearing one whole decade before Cage's). Famous for his long gaps between work, Day-Lewis has been in exactly four films in the past ten years, and only five in the decade before that. Nicolas Cage, meanwhile, was in forty-nine.

We often speak of quantity and quality, usually when we want to dismiss the former. But for every Daniel Day-Lewis there are dozens of Nicolas Cages. Humphrey Bogart, for instance (you know, the guy from Casablanca, who topped AFI's list of the greatest actors some years ago), appeared in over eighty movies in his not-even-sixty years of life. His turns in The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen, among others,are all justifiably legendary--great performances cemented in film history by the great films in which they appear. But how about Isle of Fury, or Battle Circus, or Chain Lightning, or The Return of Dr. X? Comparisons need not be limited to the world of film. We're told that practice makes perfect, and aspiring writers are told time and again to write every day, but every play Shakespeare wrote wasn't Hamlet.

Day-Lewis, the Terrence Malick of his craft, is consistent, even if he's not necessarily the most prolific. While not all of his roles are tour-de-forces, one could certainly argue that he's never given a bad performance on film. And, while one could maybe make the same argument for Cage, it would certainly be a lot tougher sell. Even if you're one of the handful of people who liked Knowing, there's just no getting around something like Next. Not only has he been in some bad movies, Cage has given bad performances. But, say what you will about his failures, Cage's successes must also be attributed to that same willingness to make bold choices, to go over-the-top. Again, like Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicolas Cage is not one to shy away from big. And he's given enough great performances to rival any actor of his generation.

You may not like all of these films. You may not like Nicolas Cage in all of these films. But one has to wonder, if, like Daniel Day-Lewis, Cage had only appeared in nine movies in twenty years, if the internet might not be equally awash with fanboys clamoring for word of the next Nicolas Cage flick. Whether you like all of them or not, those nine titles are, for my money, probably more impressive than any nine you could cull from DDL's filmography. In fact, I can't think of too many more actors with more impressive and versatile lead performances in more impressive and versatile films.

What this boils down to, in many ways, is an argument over evaluation. How does one judge a body of work? To bring up Shakespeare one more time, those proverbial monkeys typing at those proverbial typewriters eventually produce the Complete Works. Do too many bad performances negate the good ones? Do enough great ones make up for the bad ones? How many is enough?

Hank Aaron hit more home runs in his career than Babe Ruth, but he never had an amazing batting average. That said, a lot more people know Aaron than know John Stone, or Luke Appling (number one hundred and ninety-four, respectively, on the list of the hundred players with the highest batting averages, as of 2009).

How does one define greatness?

Cage may not have the batting average of a Daniel Day-Lewis, but I'd contend that he's hit just as many home runs. Personally, I'd rather watch Nicolas Cage give a "bad" performance than a lot of other actors give "good" ones. Cage--in spite of his enormous, possibly pandering resume--is always true to himself, and always interesting. Even in the dullest, most pedestrian effort like National Treasure, there are moments of brilliance. Early in that film, Cage delivers a monologue in which, over the course of less than two-and-a-half minutes, he somehow manages to convince himself (based on the flimsiest evidence imaginable) that there is a secret treasure map on the back of The Declaration of Independence. It's one of the worst bits of exposition I've ever seen in a movie, and Cage delivers it so beautifully that not only were audiences willing to somehow buy into this drivel enough to make the movie a smash at the box office, but that scene also works as a wonderful bit of self-parody of the family-action-adventure genre. Though I'd never care to sit through the movie again, I still occasionally look that scene up on youtube. It's brilliant. And it's entirely due to Cage's commitment to the hokiest of material.

But give him a great part and a great director, and watch him go to town. Cage won a Best Actor Oscar for his achingly real portrayal of the alcoholic protagonist in Leaving Las Vegas. He was nominated again for playing screenwriter Charlie (and his twin brother Donald) Kaufman in Adaptation, in which he creates two brilliant, fully-rounded characterizations. The characters are similar enough that we can see Donald as an extension of Charlie himself, and yet they remain entirely distinctive people. He has some brilliant comic moments playing opposite himself, and he brings the depth of feeling to Kaufman's script that John Cusack brought to Being John Malkovich, and Jim Carrey would to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (those who think Cage can't do subtle need to give this film, particularly, another watch). Cage's passionate Italian lover in Moonstruck--who holds vengeance and Puccini equally dear--manages to feel both fresh and archetypal. In Raising Arizona, Cage creates one of the best, and certainly one of the funniest (his biggest competition is probably Jeff Bridges' Lebowski) protagonists in the Coen canon. Few films continue to make me laugh as hard or as frequently--but, again, there is real heart and sincerity in the performance, which grounds the off-the-wall screwballery in honest emotion (there are few moments more hilariously transcendent than Cage's final line in that film). While many dismiss Bringing Out the Dead as one of Martin Scorsese's weakest films, I've always felt it's one of his best--and, once again, Cage shows his ability both in the quieter, more tender moments, and in his explosions of energy and madness. His work in Vampire's Kiss is quite simply one of the best and most inventive performances I've ever seen on film. Like Jimmy Stewart, many of Cage's best roles exploit his believable everyman persona (The Family Man, for example), while making use of his exceptional ability to channel madness (as Herzog would in his Bad Lieutenant--one of Cage's best performances to date, and easily one of the best performances of 2009). Cage works in comedies, dramas, thrillers, science-fiction, horror, family films, animated films, art films, you name it.

Which brings me to my last point. Cage works. If he's been in a lot of terrible movies--he's also been in a lot of great ones. Not only does he take risks, but he is more prolific than almost any of his peers. "I'm just trying to open things up, find new sounds and look for new gesture and form in film acting," Cage says of his work in a recent interview with Cinematical's Todd Gilchrist. "And that's going to inevitably be met with confusion or assumptions, or enjoyment." Before he gives a great performance, Daniel Day-Lewis spends months and years preparing, living the part, getting inside the character. Where Day-Lewis takes an extremely psychological approach to acting, Cage is something of a formalist. Before Cage gives a great performance in a great film, he tends to give a number of mediocre performances in mediocre movies. Such tends to be the nature of experimentation--and of practice. Cage is constantly practicing, stretching his boundaries, trying new things, never afraid of shredding his reputation. One might call that selling out, but I see in it a kind of courage. And perhaps it's easier to forgive Cage's missteps when we recognize the soaring peaks of his work--and that it is this same incredible endurance, work ethic, and obsessive commitment to craft that is responsible for both Ghost Rider and Adaptation.

Decades from now, few people will remember Ghost Rider. Few people will remember G-Force or Bangkok Dangerousor Captain Corelli's Mandolin. But people will still be watching Moonstruck, and Raising Arizona, and Adaptation, and The Bad Lieutenant. And, at that point, I expect very few people will refer to Nicolas Cage as the worst actor ever.