Nicolas Cage kept choosing fishing on his boat over Sean Connery’s invitations to play golf. At a New York Comic Con spotlight panel on Saturday, Oct. 10, the 62-year-old actor said he still regrets missing that time with his friend, according to PEOPLE.

“And I feel to this day that I should have taken him up on it and learned how to play golf,” Cage said, looking back.

Their friendship grew after they worked together on 1996’s The Rock. Cage visited Connery at home, but when he had time off, he wanted to spend it on the water.

“He was somebody that I considered a friend. We were friends. I would visit him at his house,” Cage said. “But I never went on the golf course because I just didn’t have time for that.”

Connery had shaped Cage’s ambitions long before they became co-stars. In 2016, Cage recalled watching him as James Bond with his father: “Going as far back as Dr. No, which I saw at a drive-in movie theatre with my father, I knew I wanted to be like that.” Cage also described working with 1 of his childhood acting heroes on The Rock as a dream.

When Connery died in 2020 at 90, Cage paid tribute to the friendship and the guidance he’d received: “He was my friend and greatest teacher in cinema.”