by
Paul Fischer
Sir Michael Caine was
astonishing in the universally praised Quiet
American,
but the 
Oscar winning legend confesses, that the experience of trying to get
that film seen is one he will never repeat. Caine now appears opposite Robert
Duvall and Hayley Joel Osment in Secondhand
Lions, playing an irascible
Texan uncle, but this legendary star is no secondhand lion off the screen,
as we discovered in a unique one on one meeting with the
legend himself.
CrankyCritic: What has always struck me about
you is that you have this incredible working class background. Where does the
actor from come
within
you do you
think?
Michael Caine: I have no idea. There has never been an actor
in my family, and I think the reason I wanted to become an actor, is I wanted
to be in British
films. My ambitions were very small really. It’s was a class thing.
I had watched British films and I never, ever saw any working class characters
that I could possibly identify with. For instance, American war films were
made about privates. British war films were made about officers. It’s
true, so my main ambition in going into movies was very small. I had no idea
it would come this far. It was just to set the record straight and show you
a real, human cockney who was not a moron, who was not grovelling, who was
not dishonest and who wasn’t an ugly little thing — that was
the extent of my ambition in trying to get into films.
CrankyCritic: Was it a realistic ambition?
Michael Caine: No. There is quite a line in this movie. I don’t say it, Bobby says
it. He says, "It doesn’t have to be true to believe in it".
And that’s what I did. I knew it wasn’t true, but I believed in
it.
CrankyCritic: Yet, ironically, as you did continue to work, the cockney aspects
of you slowly started to dissipate.
Michael Caine: Look at the first picture where
I was ever noticed, was when I was a toffy nosed officer in Zulu for
God’s sake, and I mean I have come right through
now to playing the Times reporter in Saigon, you know, a complete Graham
Green figure in The Quiet American.
CrankyCritic: Right, and then you did Last
Orders.
Michael Caine: Last Orders which was really
almost playing my father, and it was very funny because in Last Orders I died of cancer in St. Thomas’ Hospital
were we shot it, which is where my father died of cancer.
CrankyCritic: Really?.
Michael Caine: Yeah—and t was a very
realistic death, because I copied my father’s
death.
CrankyCritic: Are you more selective now than you were when you were younger?
Michael Caine: Oh yeah. When you get to
my age, you don’t want to get out of bed
at half past 6:00 in the morning to do a lot of crap. Yeah, it’s
gotta be an offer I can’t refuse. Kind of—for instance—Phillip
Noyce rings you and says, "Do you want to do The Quiet American?" you
say, yeah, I will be there,
what time?
CrankyCritic: But there was that
period during the seventies when you did anything and everything…
Michael Caine: Yeah—well that was
when I was trying to become a movie star, and then you go to America — you
know — I wasn’t an American actor. When you get to America
it is always, for me, incredible. And to actually get offered movies
in America was wonderful.
CrankyCritic: So having done that
group of films, The Swarm, all that kind of stuff— when you
decided, okay, I have done all of this crap, enough it enough. I am now going
to work…
Michael Caine: When I went back to England,
and I did Educating Rita and things like that. But there was
always—in between all of those—there was always in that
group right there like California Suite, Death Trap and all
of these things—so movies like The Poseidon Adventure and The
Swarm, I did for Irwin Allen, because he’d done the Towering
Inferno, with the two biggest stars in the world, Steve
McQueen and Paul Newman. But at the same
time, I became an extraordinary experienced movie actor, and I never
stopped working. I was one of the most experienced movie actors in
the world. So when the parts came along that were good and needed playing,
it wasn’t some trembling guy who has been waiting for three years
for a good part to come along. It was a guy who was filming six weeks
ago.
CrankyCritic: Right, but then you
would approach something like that differently.
Michael Caine: Differently, yes. Oh, yeah,
it was completely different. And, but of course, now I don’t have
to work, and I just work, I think, what I call offers I can’t refuse.
CrankyCritic: What gives you the
greatest amount of pleasure these days?
Michael Caine: Getting it right, getting to
the end of a difficult take where you know you’ve hit everything
and it’s absolutely perfect, and the director says "cut", and you
almost hear the technicians going "shew".
CrankyCritic: Right.
Michael Caine: You get that and that’s
like a drug, because a shiver goes down your spine when you’ve done
it.
CrankyCritic: And it’s easy
to do that now?
Michael Caine: No. It’s very hard, but
you can do it, you can do it.
CrankyCritic: I mean, is there
a character that you’ve played that you feel is a quintessential Michael
Caine character?
Michael Caine: No. I think the nearest I’ve
came was when I was that age—I mean for instance I’m a father,
and a very devoted father, and I devote a great deal of time to being
a father—I rarely play the father.
CrankyCritic: That’s a good
one.
Michael Caine: I am completely honest, I am
very, very gentle, and I’ve played the toughest, most dishonest people
you ever come across. The nearest character I could ever think that came
to me would have been Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File. He was a saucy
sod who was a bit bossy against authority, yet was intelligent enough to
be in the intelligence, you know? And he was quite courageous if stuck
in a difficult situation; and, and that would’ve about described
me then, but then, of course, I became a very different person. I became
a father; I became a person with a certain amount of power in what I do;
I became a rich man. I never played rich guys. I’m never cast as
a rich guy. I wish I was... I would get to keep the wardrobe.
CrankyCritic: Because people get
to see you as a working class character.
Michael Caine: Yes, they cast me as a working,
which is fine, but I mean it comes out of that class thing, it’s
like Quiet American, you know, you know, Times reporter.
CrankyCritic: Right. You, you seem
to get into that role perfectly.
Michael Caine: Yeah, well, I was ready to
play that. I knew that. I knew the Far East, I even knew Graham
Green; and it was all about that, because he did have a girlfriend
in Vietnam.
CrankyCritic: You’ve said
that you wouldn’t put yourself through the kind of stress of the film
experiences of Quiet American again. Is that because you’ll
never find a role like that again?
Michael Caine: No, I would do, no, if I
picked a role and the producers said "Bag it, I don’t like it,
I’m going to sling it out in January," I say "Sling it out in January." I
can’t be bothered, can’t be bothered. I wouldn’t do
it again. It was too tough for me; nearly killed me that did; nearly
killed me. The stress of it was unbelievable; unbelievable stress. And
I only knew it when I got back to England recently; and I just collapsed
right up until now for six weeks, having gone straight from that into The
Statement. At the end of that, it was just the adrenaline and chewing
gum keeping me going. I just collapsed, and, you know, I didn’t
say a word for a week. And now, although we have just been, I never speak
about The Quiet American. I never care to discuss it or anything.
CrankyCritic: Really.
Michael Caine: I don’t want to know
anything about it.
CrankyCritic: Yet you would pleased to know
that it’s an extraordinary film.
Michael Caine: Yeah, well thank you. At
least it’s out there; it’s out on DVD and people can buy
it, and they’ll see it. It will be on the telly sometime; it will
be on cable; it will be around.
CrankyCritic: Being so selective,
now, what was it about the character in Secondhand Lions 
that
you felt that you could offer something that was a bit different?
Michael Caine: It was, it was, first of
all, it was the type of movie that it was.
CrankyCritic: Old fashioned?
Michael Caine: Yeah. It’s so good
and clean and nice, and what I liked about it was it wasn’t at
all morbid. It wasn’t sentimental slush. These two guys never gave
up being hard, right to the end.
CrankyCritic: But it’s always about
coming to terms with your age, too.
Michael Caine: Yeah, yeah.
CrankyCritic: You relate to that aspect don’t
you?
Michael Caine: Yeah, but what I couldn’t
relate to, which it was the part that, obviously, as an actor you’re
playing it, was probably the line always says, you know, we’re
at the end of our lives and we’re useless.
CrankyCritic: Right.
Michael Caine: And the picture was about
they were at the end of their lives and weren’t useless, cause
they had the boy. Well, I’ve never got to that stage of being,
you know, useless and feeling. I feel it’s all great, and I, I
don’t feel old. I feel in there as though I gave a very good performance
as an old man, ha, ha.
CrankyCritic: An old Texan man.
Michael Caine: An old Texan man..
CrankyCritic: Now how, do you find,
do you find it difficult to get into an American character.
Michael Caine: I’ve grown up with
American movies, you see, and I’ve lived in America. I lived
in America for eight years. I’ve worked in America for 40 years.
So, American characters are so familiar. They’re all characters
that a lot of them I couldn’t play, because they’re such
caricatures. But this wasn’t a caricature of a Texan. This was
just a man who was a Texan.
CrankyCritic: You wrote your memoirs.
Michael Caine: Yeah, and I may do another
book. I sat down the other day and I said to my wife, I’m gonna write
two pages now of my second half of my autobiography, So I wrote them down.
She’s very critical and she said 'it’s great'; she said keep
going. So I’m gonna keep going.
CrankyCritic: So, you will have
to write about The Quiet American when you do that. Will that be
a cathartic?
Michael Caine: Ah ha ha. It might be exciting
for one or two people, yes. It was The Quiet American that
made me think I ought to write some more.
CrankyCritic: Really?
Michael Caine: Yeah.
CrankyCritic: So does Harvey Weinstein have
anything to worry about?
Michael Caine: No. No, I wouldn’t.
The thing is about Harvey is that he was so great for me with Little
Voice and Cider House Rules, which put me in the position
where you could back me into Quiet American. So I felt I owed
him. After what he did with the Quiet American, I feel we’re
even. So that’s it.
CrankyCritic: What do you want
people to remember you for?
Michael Caine: They don’t even have
to.
CrankyCritic: But they probably will.
Michael Caine: They probably will. I think
they’ll remember me for being fun, even in dramas and that, you
know?
CrankyCritic: Hmm.
Michael Caine: I was fun. Because the interviews
are fun or when they see me on television, I’m always getting laughs
and all that.
CrankyCritic: Was the knighthood
something that you were expecting? And how did the cockney lad from London
react to that?
Michael Caine: Oh, I thought it
was great. I was very, very pleased to get the announcement.
Very, it was the best thing, the best award I have ever gotten,
because it’s, it’s an award for a whole life rather
than for a movie, like the Academy Awards or something. This
award is for a complete effort of a lifetime, which is why you
don’t get it until quite late, because they want to see
what you can do.
CrankyCritic: But also implies that you’ve
been, that it’s almost the end of a life, but it’s not for
you.
Michael Caine: Well no, because there’s
a lordship yet. I haven’t got that yet.
CrankyCritic: Why do you think
your films seem to be the target of Hollywood remakes?
Michael Caine: I don’t know. I think,
I like to think because they’re interesting. But I’ve remade
a couple of films. I remade the Quiet American, which wasn’t
very good, and I remade Bedtime Story, which was Dirty Rotten
Scoundrel. I remade flops, because that is a great idea, because you’ve
got nowhere to go but up but these guys are remaking really successful
movies. I think they’ve got to do it very, very differently. I think
that’s what will happen with Alfie. It’s been rewritten
by an American woman.
CrankyCritic: What are you going
to do now? Are you taking some time off?
Michael Caine: Yeah, I’m, I’m
going to sleep when I get home on Wednesday.