World Trade Center film a personal one for star

The five-year anniversary of 9/11 was a day for many to remember the victims of the terrorist attack.

Many people knew someone effected by the tragedy, as did Nicolas Cage, the star of Oliver Stone's film World Trade Center, one of the first about the attacks.

Cage, the Oscar winning star of Leaving Las Vegas, told contactmusic.com that making the film, in which he plays the real life character of Port Authority Police Department sergeant John McLoughlin, was personal.

"I knew a chef who had worked in Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top on one of the towers. He didn't make it, which made the whole thing even more personal for me," he said.

Not wanting to "cash in" on the story, Cage donated his rumoured £4 million pay check to charity.

The film has received criticism for being made to soon, while the emotion is still fresh in people's minds.

Cage disagrees, saying that people need to be educated and made aware.

"It's important to look at tragedy and to learn from it and even Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays that were very unhappy," he said.
"But this is part of the human condition and we're all born into it, and if you don't look at it, maybe we're not going to do something about it."

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