I stumbled across a story on The Earth Times site last night about Nicolas Cage being set to play Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in an Egyptian TV series. Being skeptical, I scouted around a bit and found blurbs on some Nic Cage fan sites; still, we'll just call this a rumor at this point.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the story is true. Cage has a string of diverse projects in his past, everything from producing The Life of David Gale (a death penalty opponent) to voicing a part in the animated family movie, The Ant Bully. And, of course, there's his National Treasure movies, which I love.

According to the Earth Times story, Cage will lose six kilograms to play the part of Sadat (which, if the conversion site I looked at is true, comes to about 13 lbs.) before he starts shooting the series. It also notes that he'll be paid $40 million. Wow, that's some serious cash.