Nicolas Cage has revealed he still hasn’t been refunded for the stolen dinosaur skull he bought at an auction which he then had to return to Mongolia.
The National Treasure star from a Beverly Hills gallery for $276,000 (£186,000) in 2007 unaware it had been pinched – and even outbid for it.
In an interview with the April issue of – for which he is the cover star, the 58-year-old actor said he is still out of pocket following the drama.
‘It was the skull I bought at an action, and I bought it legally,’ Nicolas began. ‘Here’s the MacGuffin: When the Mongolian government said they needed it back, I gave it to them, but I never got my money back.’
‘So, somebody at the auction house should be in jail,’ he added.
Nicolas’s publicist Alex Schack revealed at the time that the actor received a certificate of authenticity from the gallery for the artifact but was informed by the Department of Homeland Security in 2014 that the skull might have been taken illegally.
The actor and gallery are not accused of any wrongdoing.
The Tyrannosaurus bataar is a carnivore measuring 33 to 39 feet long that lived in Asia 70 million years ago. Fossils have been recovered in Mongolia, with more fragmentary remains found further afield in parts of China.
Elsewhere in his interview with , Nicolas admitted he hasn’t got his head around the ‘fascination’ with his ‘face or facial expressions’ that make it such good viral content.
‘I’m like, well, but why? Just like, “What is it?”,’ he told the publication.
However, he admitted that he is largely fine with it, saying: ‘You can’t go against that which is.’
After getting out of debt, he also pointed out he is planning on being ‘extremely selective’ about what he signs on for.
‘I’m just going to focus on being extremely selective, as selective as I can be,’ he shared. ‘I would like to make every movie as if it were my last.’
Read the full interview, Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All by Gabriella Paiella, in GQ’s April issue and on .
