MOVIE PILOT
by Simon Hardy Butler ⋅ Posted on December 4th, 2014 at 12:59am
The best thing about Interstellar, in my opinion, was Michael Caine. So why aren't more people talking about his performance?
Even if you haven't seen the movie, it's worth listening to him recite selected lines from Dylan Thomas' poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," which may be found in at least one of the trailers. I've included one below.
He's magnificent, isn't he? What a professional. And he elevated this film significantly, though it needed all he could muster.
I'm thinking an Oscar nod wouldn't be out of the question. But are Academy voters doing the same?
"If you're a movie star, you get the girl, you lose the girl, and then you get her back," Caine said.
"But if you're a character like me, you lose the girl, then you get another one, then you get another one, then you lose them all, then you lose your life. It's all very different. And it's fascinating for me."
He continued: "It's [being] a movie actor, as opposed to movie star. And I remember when it happened to me. A producer sent me a script, and I sent it back and said, 'The part's too small. I don't want to play it'.
"And he sent it back and said, 'I didn't want you to play the lover; I wanted you to play the father'. And I thought, oh my god. I rushed in the bathroom, had a look in the mirror, and there wasn't the lover looking at me: There was the father."
Caine gained international fame for his roles in hit films like Alfie and The Italian Job, and later won two Academy Awards for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules.
The Italian Job star previously insisted he would step away from the movie business when he turned 80 in March (13), but he decided to abandon the plan and carry on making films.
Caine is adamant he wants to win another Oscar by the time he retires, and has given himself 10 more years to do it.
When asked whether he is planning to try for a third Academy Award, Caine tells Parade.com, "Yeah, I'll have another go and then retire when I'm 90."
He also reveals he wants to work with recent Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, who picked up a Best Actress trophy for her role in Silver Linings Playbook.
He adds, "I think she's wonderful. I voted for her for the Oscar. I'd love to play her grandfather or something."
British actor Sir Michael Caine will be given the Freedom of the City of London.
In the past, the honour has been bestowed upon other actors including Dame Judi Dench, and figures such as Winston Churchill, Diana, Princess of Wales and Nelson Mandela have also been recipients.
One of the oldest surviving traditional ceremonies, the award is thought to date back to 1237.
The honour is the latest in a long list awarded to Caine, who will turn 80 next week.
Caine was originally from London, having grown up in Southwark. Born Maurice Micklewhite in 1933 to a fish porter and a cleaner, he became famous for his roles in films such as Zulu, The Italian Job and The Ipcress File.
They were born within minutes of each other nearly 80 years ago, and on April 13, jazz great Quincy Jones and British actor Michael Caine will celebrate their birthdays together at a star-studded party at the MGM Grand resort.
The Power of Love Gala is a fundraiser for the Las Vegas-based Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.
Tickets start at $1,500 a person, but the price includes an evening’s worth of activities, beginning with a dinner prepared by celebrity chefs Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay.
Sir Michael Caine: “In my life I’ve always been so fortunate”
He's 78 years old, but movie legend Sir Michael Caine says lots of things in life make him feel years younger.
They include his grandchildren, his beautiful wife Shakira, his astonishing film career... and never looking at his own reflection.
“I don’t feel very old, but I never look in a mirror so I always think I’m about 38,” he laughs.
Forty years after marrying Shakira, Michael says they are as happy as the day they met.
He first saw the Miss World finalist in a TV ad for Maxwell House coffee. He was a bit of a playboy at the time with lots of girlfriends, but was instantly smitten.
Devoted... Michael and wife Shakira have been married for 40 years
He was about to fly out to Brazil to find her... until a mutual pal told him she lived a mile from him in London.
The friend gave him her number and they’ve been together ever since.
And at 65, Shakira is still amazingly beautiful.
“You should have seen her when she was 24,” he says.
“Oh we’re so romantic. We go off on little honeymoons. Every now and again we go off to a lovely hotel called the George V in Paris and have a weekend honeymoon away from everybody.
“Paris is our city. We always do the quote from Casablanca... Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman, she was saying goodbye and he says, ‘We’ll always have Paris.’ And that’s us two.”
Hardman.. Caine in Get Carter in 1971
Triple Oscar winner Michael, born Maurice Micklewhite into an impoverished family in Rotherhithe, South London, drifted to Paris as a young man.
“I know the city so well. I went there when I was very young and broke. I wound up selling frites on the streets on a hotdog stand.
“I made very good frites actually. And then I went back wealthier and wealthier and was able to stay in nicer and nicer places and to eat at all the great restaurants.”
You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.. Caine in The Italian Job
After complaining that his two daughters were slow to give him grandchildren, Sir Michael and Shakira have recently acquired three, and he couldn’t be happier about it.
“I was 75 and suddenly got three grandchildren. My youngest daughter had a son and the next year she had twins. I’ve got two boys and a girl, so it’s perfect.
“You don’t quite know how wonderful it is until you get them. And then you become completely besotted with them.
“I am, and my wife is even worse. I’m just like the grandchildren now, playing Ben on the iPad. It’s great, fantastic.”
Sir Michael, who has appeared in some of the most memorable British movies of all time, has had one of the longest careers in the industry.
But of all his roles – from breakthrough part Lt Gonville Bromhead in 1964’s Zulu to the title character in 2009’s Harry Brown – it’s as Alfred Pennyworth, the Butler in Batman, that he’s most recognised for.
Dark Knight... with Christian Bale as Alfred Pennyworth in Batman
“There was a funny incident a little while ago,” he says. “I was walking along Piccadilly in London and there was a group of 12 Japanese teenagers.
“They all saw me and went nuts. They were all pointing at me and getting little bits of paper out saying, ‘Can we have your autograph?’ And I said, ‘What film have you seen me in?’ And they said, ‘You’re Alfred, Batman.’
“Tiny little Japanese girls and they all knew who I was. Isn’t that great?”
"The Dark Knight Rises" is slated for release on July 20th 2012 and the incredible British actor Michael Caine will once again be serving steaks and fetching martinis for billionaire Bruce Wayne as his trustworthy butler Alfred Pennyworth. But ironically, in many of Michael Caine's non-Batman movies, he plays affluent playboys with much more in common with Bruce Wayne than with his manservant. These four films represent that suave "I could undress her with my eyes…blindfolded" demeanor that Michael Caine is much more famous for when he is not being hired to change Batman's linens. "Alfie"
Michael Caine fills the title role of Alfie, a promiscuous player, whose addiction to females includes not getting addicted to any one woman. Caine's carefree charisma captures the swinging free love, pre-AIDS era of London in the 1960s. The question becomes if Alfie will rethink his priorities and settle down instead of settling for just sex? This dramatic comedy gives the audience the same key to "heartbreak hotel" that Alfie gives to his ladies with lines like "I don't want no bird's respect—I wouldn't know what to do with it." Remember, even Batman's butler was not born a butler. "The Italian Job"
Any fans of Mark Wahlberg in "The Italian Job" (2003) should also become familiar with the original Charlie Coker played by Michael Caine in the 1969 version. This role is the exact opposite of Caine's Alfred from "The Dark Knight"—the type of character that would put Michael Caine on Batman's most wanted list—instead of on his domestic payroll. This version of "The Italian Job" gives Charlie and his gold-heisting cronies a more happy-go-lucky tone on their risky trip to Italy to rob the Fiat auto company; and Michael Caine's comedic timing is unstoppable. "Hannah and Her Sisters"
Woody Allen is the cinematic definition of "New York", translatable into any language. But he was willing to call in one of the United Kingdom's greatest stars to give Manhattan some British flavor when he cast Michael Caine as Elliot. A husband cheating with his wife's sister, this lustful rapscallion mirrors Michael Caine's clever playboy Alfie (if Alfie narrowed his sex-ploitation to one extra woman instead of many). Along with a trilogy of fine actresses: Dianne Wiest, Mia Farrow and Barbara Hershey—Michael Caine helped give Woody Alien his biggest hit ever, until "Midnight in Paris" 25 years later. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"
Michael Caine has proven time and again that he can still carve his unigornable presence into the big big screen, even when beside amazing dramatic costars like Christian Bale, Clive Owen and Ben Kingsley. Comedy is a different animal, but not for Caine; he was required to share a huge amount of his scenes in the hilarious 1988 film "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" with "funny bone surgeon" Steve Martin and didn't miss a beat. Caine thrives in the role of Lawrence Jamieson, a con man competing with Steve Martin's Freddy Benson for French Riviera supremacy. Their victims are women and their weapon is seduction. If you do not notice a pattern developing here then we'll spell it out plain and simple. Michael Caine has played the greatest British playboys whose names were not James Bond.
