Michael Caine: Every Bloody Thing | Little White Lies

Interviews

Michael Caine: Every Bloody Thing

22 Jan 2016

Portrait of a man wearing glasses and a bow tie, in a monochrome style.
Portrait of a man wearing glasses and a bow tie, in a monochrome style.
The British screen icon reflects on his remark­able career ahead of his star­ring role in Pao­lo Sorrentino’s Youth.

Michael Caine is pro­pelled by such perky charm that every­thing he says – in pub­lic life or with­in char­ac­ter – seems peachy. It often isn’t as sim­ple as that, but such is the pow­er of his unique per­sona. His voice is imme­di­ate­ly recog­nis­able, a blend of cock­ney chancer and man of the world. Film-wise, he has starred in the great and the good, the bad and the awful, albeit with­out ever per­son­al­ly deliv­er­ing a duff per­for­mance. Caine is a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al whose atten­tion to craft began when, at aged 14, he took out a book on act­ing tech­nique by the Russ­ian actor Vsevolod Pudovkin from the South­wark Pub­lic Library. Film act­ing is re-act­ing, not act­ing” and nev­er blink before the cam­era” are self-taught lessons still evi­dent in his per­for­mances today.

Caine has been through a lot, on and off screen. He is open to the point of pride about his upbring­ing among the poor, work­ing class­es of south Lon­don. He was part of the evac­u­a­tions dur­ing World War Two, and in 1952, nation­al ser­vice took him to Korea for two years. From there, it was full steam ahead into the world of act­ing. His eyes were always on the movies as he slogged away in the­atre and then in tele­vi­sion, absorb­ing advice from col­leagues and men­tors at every oppor­tu­ni­ty. His first film role final­ly came in 1964 with Cy Endfield’s Zulu.

His name is Michael Caine and no one will for­get his name: Michael Caine. He walks straight into sen­sa­tion­al star­dom in The Ipcress File, as he gets right under the skin of the brash, cocky, wry-humoured Har­ry Palmer.” So announces a clipped voice in the 1965 trail­er for Sid­ney J Furie’s 1965 film The Ipcress File, pro­pa­gan­da which would prove to be prophet­ic. In 1966 along came Alfie and the essence of Caine’s abil­i­ty to make the cam­era love him as a rogue.

He refers to women as it” and, mirac­u­lous­ly, remains adorable. He reached Amer­i­ca in the same decade, star­ring oppo­site Shirley MacLaine, who per­son­al­ly sought him out for a role in Ronald Neame’s Gam­bit. It’s been a full 50 years of A‑game work in Hol­ly­wood and back home in the UK, across seri­ous dra­ma, slap­stick come­dies, genre films and art­house gems. He has worked as favours for pals, for the high-life and for the love of act­ing. Caine enjoys telling movie star anecdotes.

The span of his career means there’s gold at his fin­ger­tips on the likes of John Wayne, Jack Lemon, Cary Grant and Bette Davis. He has worked for with Bri­an De Pal­ma, Woody Allen, John Hus­ton, Joseph L Mankewicz and Alfon­so Cuarón. Christo­pher Nolan basi­cal­ly won’t make a film with­out him. He is com­i­cal­ly alive to the sweet­en­ers of loca­tion and famous­ly agreed to act in Jaws: The Revenge after see­ing on the first page of its script the words, Fade in: Hawaii”. This shoot meant he was unable to accept his Best Sup­port­ing Actor Oscar for Han­nah and Her Sis­ters, in which he is sub­lime – adding heavy­weight pathos to Woody Allen’s fly­away New York.

Pao­lo Sorrentino’s Youth adds anoth­er rich role to the canon. Caine plays Fred Ballinger, an elder­ly, retired com­pos­er who now resides in a lux­u­ry Swiss resort. Here he shoots the breeze with his direc­tor friend, Mick (Har­vey Kei­t­el), and rings in the changes that come with age. It becomes appar­ent from the arrival of his daugh­ter, Lena (Rachel Weisz), that Fred has not always been a lov­ing father. Caine makes him a suc­cess and a fail­ure, a com­ic pres­ence with trag­ic bur­dens. When LWLies met with Caine after Youth’s pre­mière at the 2015 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, he was will­ing to talk about his fam­i­ly, his friends, his mem­o­ries… every bloody thing.

Detailed sketch of an elderly man's face, wearing a red and gold military uniform, with a stern expression.

LWLies: Do you have to stave off the mem­o­ry loss that can come with ageing?

Caine: No. I spent 60 years remem­ber­ing dia­logue. What hap­pens is, as I get old­er, I don’t for­get it but it takes me 10 times longer to learn the bloody thing, that’s where the men­tal thing goes. I used to look at the script to go okay”. They’d give me a page of dia­logue and say, We shoot it in 20 min­utes.” They give me a page now and I say, We’ll shoot this next week.”

Fred and Mick talk about wish­ing that they could remem­ber spe­cif­ic event in more detail. Can you relate?

No. I have a mem­o­ry like a com­put­er. I remem­ber every bloody thing. Oh, it’s dread­ful. I have a mem­o­ry so full of stuff that I wish I could get the garbage guy to come round and clear some out.

When did you first know you had a good memory?

Always. But my best friend died of demen­tia. What’s it called – not demen­tia – Alzheimer’s. It’s like watch­ing some­one walk away to the hori­zon very slow­ly. It takes them three years to get out of sight and then they’re gone. I remem­ber going round his house. I came in and he didn’t know who I was for the first time, the very first time. He was my tai­lor actu­al­ly. His name was Doug Hayward.

How did it affect you?

I start­ed look­ing up books which tell you what to eat. You know you get all of those pills? I’m a bit too old for them. I’m 82. I think, You’re so old demen­tia says, For­get it.’”

Fred and Mick’s friend­ship is root­ed in only say­ing nice things to each oth­er. Is that also your con­cept of friendship?

Oh yeah, I’ve nev­er said any­thing nasty to my clos­est friends. I have 11 clos­est friends. I was sit­ting some­place very lone­ly on loca­tion in Africa, and I thought, I wish my friends were here,” and then I count­ed them. I have 11. I have about eight now. Three are dead. But none of them have I ever had a row with. We nev­er say things like, You’re great and you’re fan­tas­tic but you know what’s wrong with you?” We nev­er say that. Nothing’s wrong with you. Nothing.

Are any of them peo­ple we might know?

One of my clos­est friends is a com­pos­er called Leslie Bricusse. He wrote What Kind of Fool Am I?’ [from Stop the World – I Want to Get Off] He wrote mil­lions of songs. He’s one of my clos­est friends and we’ve nev­er said a bad word. We’ve known each oth­er 52 years.

You seem to be very loy­al. You used to be the wom­an­is­er who was play­ing Alfie, and you’ve had a mar­riage of near­ly – what is it? – 50 years?

46.

What’s the secret behind that? Keep­ing old friend­ships and keep­ing your very best friend, your wife?

All of my friends got mar­ried. We were all chas­ing girls when we were young and then we all got mar­ried at about the same time. We all mar­ried very hap­pi­ly, and none of us ever got divorced. Oh, wait, I got divorced. I got mar­ried when I was 20 and divorced when I was 22, which is usu­al­ly what hap­pens if you get mar­ried when you’re 20.

But if you’re a movie star, there are the opportunities.

Yes, I know that. But the first thing I did was I mar­ried the most beau­ti­ful woman I’d ever seen in my life. I still mean that. And we always go on loca­tion togeth­er. Loca­tion is the tricky part, because some actors say loca­tion doesn’t count, in their mar­riage. Every­where counts in my marriage.

Have you ever had the feel­ing that you neglect­ed your chil­dren because of your career, like Fred does?

No, they used to come on loca­tion with me if it was good. Every­body always trav­elled with me every­where: the whole fam­i­ly. For instance, I’m going to do a movie in New York in August and I’m not stay­ing in a hotel room. I’ve got a house with a swim­ming pool and a ten­nis court. The grand­chil­dren, their nan­nies, every­one is com­ing. I trav­el with the whole bloody lot.

Do you dote on the grand­kids now?

Oh, the grand­kids, don’t get me start­ed on them. I’ll bore the pants off you for six hours. I had two daugh­ters, and my first grand­child was a boy and he looks exact­ly like me only bet­ter look­ing. I didn’t know the oth­er two were com­ing, the twins. They were lat­er. But this boy became my son and, to this day, is my son in my mind. I’m one of his fathers. He’s got two fathers. We were watch­ing a car­toon togeth­er one day and a com­mer­cial for Bat­man came on, one of my movies. I’m stand­ing there with Bat­man, and he looked at me. He didn’t know I’m an actor. He was about four. He said: Do you know Bat­man?” I said, Yeah, he’s a friend of mine.” And he told every­body. He stood up at school in the class and said, My pa’s a friend of Batman’s.”

There’s been a lot of car­i­ca­tures of you, like The Dork Knight.

It’s a com­pli­ment. Peo­ple say to me: Do you get annoyed at peo­ple stop­ping you in the street?“ I say, Not as annoyed as I’d get if they didn’t stop me in the street.”

How would you describe Youth?

This film is about life. It’s fun­ny, it’s sad, it’s every­thing. It’s not a com­e­dy, it’s not a dra­ma, it’s not a satire. It’s not a musi­cal, but there’s a lot of music in it. It’s Pao­lo, that’s what it is, Paolo’s view of things and I love it.

What sense do you make of the out­rage of the actress (Jane Fon­da) towards the direc­tor (Har­vey Keitel)?

I was try­ing to fig­ure out who she was based on. I think it might have been Bette Davis or, I’ll tell you who: Joan Craw­ford. I nev­er knew Joan Craw­ford but I knew Bette Davis. Hume Cronyn and Jes­si­ca Tandy were friends of mine from New York the­atre. One night I was in New York on my own, pub­li­cis­ing a movie, and they said, Come out to din­ner with us.” I said yes. They said, We’ve got you a date.” I said, Okay. Who is it?” It was Bette Davis. We had a great evening togeth­er. I was about 40, she was about 75. At the end of the evening she says to me: I am going home alone in a taxi.” Just in case I was gonna make the first move.

How was shoot­ing the scene with Miss Universe?

Well that was awk­ward because the water wasn’t there. That’s CGI – that was put in lat­er. The plat­form that you see is their plat­form that they use. That’s the way you get across the square when it floods. But the most awk­ward thing for me was when I got to the oth­er end I had to drown. I had to drown with no water and everyone’s going What the hell?” I’m doing this stand­ing on the plat­form that’s in St Mark’s Square. I was very hap­py when I saw the movie because I’d nev­er seen it with the water and the lights and every­thing. I thought it was fab­u­lous the way it looked.

But Miss Uni­verse wasn’t a spe­cial effect?

No, oh blimey no. She’s not is she? She’s incred­i­ble. Beau­ti­ful. Some­thing remind­ed me of fast prej­u­dice. I loved the girl, I thought she was a smash­ing girl. She did the nude scene and every­thing. Beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful. I thought, She’s won­der­ful.’ Then she had this long scene, scream­ing and lots of dia­logue. And I thought, Oh shoot we’re gonna be here all night. She’s gonna screw this up.’ She did it in two takes. You see, what’s great about her is she can real­ly act this girl. And she’s a love­ly girl.

Detailed portrait of a man with lined face, heavy brow, and intense expression. Wearing a navy blue suit and red tie.

What was it like doing a nude scene with Har­vey Keitel?

We kept our clothes on. We don’t want to upset any­one. Nobody told us about her. Pao­lo didn’t tell us. We were just sit­ting there in the pool. He said we’re just sit­ting there relax­ing and then some­one will come in the pool – a pret­ty girl’s gonna come in the pool. He didn’t tell us she was nude. We thought the pret­ty girl was gonna come in a bathing cos­tume, you know, and we’re gonna be like dirty old men stand­ing there. That’s why you’ve got the stunned look on their faces.

Which actor has most influ­enced you and why?

Humphrey Bog­a­rt and Mar­lon Bran­do. Humphrey, because he could talk like an ordi­nary human being. I know he was sup­posed to be a tough guy, but there was a real­i­ty to Bog­a­rt which a lot of oth­ers didn’t have. And Bran­do because he was such an incred­i­ble actor. He wasn’t just stand­ing there, he would do all sorts of things. I found out that he couldn’t remem­ber his bloody lines. He used to have them on the wall every­where. I wish I could’ve done that. I met one actor who said that Bran­do typed his lines on his fore­head. I thought, It’s a good job I wasn’t an actor then, he wouldn’t have got away with that on my forehead.”

Bog­a­rt and Bran­do were from mod­est back­grounds, which was pos­si­ble for Amer­i­can actors ear­li­er than in the UK. Do you think you were part of a work­ing-class break­through there?

Yeah, I was one of the first ones, but that’s not con­ceit­ed because I didn’t do it, the writ­ers did it. I was very for­tu­nate to become an actor, when the writ­ers came along. For instance, the British screen­writ­ers nev­er wrote war sto­ries about pri­vate sol­diers. Only Amer­i­cans wrote war sto­ries about pri­vate sol­diers. They didn’t write about offi­cers, the British wrote about offi­cers. They wrote about the mid­dle-class all the time, until John [Osborne] came along and wrote Look Back in Anger’, which was the first time there had been a work­ing class per­son in the lead. And Noël Cow­ard wrote one too. Then there was a play called The Long and the Short and the Tall’, which – in the the­atre I’m talk­ing about – made Peter O’Toole a star. He gave a fab­u­lous per­for­mance in that play. I was his under­study and I took over when he went to do Lawrence of Ara­bia. And that was the first play ever about pri­vate soldiers.

Has pro­duc­tion begun on Going in Style with Alan Arkin and Mor­gan Free­man yet?

I start­ed that on 3 August in New York. Alan Arkin, Mor­gan Free­man and me are three old guys. The bank fore­clos­es on the mort­gage on our flat and we can’t pay it. So we rob the bank. And that’s it. The three of us rob the bank.

Do you think there is a con­flict between youth and old age? In your 2009 film, Har­ry Brown, there was a moral con­flict between the old and the new generation.

I shot Har­ry Brown where I come from. I could see where my house used to be. We were bombed out in the war and then they made these pre-fab­ri­cat­ed hous­es with asbestos. We used to live in those. Which, fun­ni­ly enough, was a lot bet­ter: we had a bath­room, hot water run­ning, every­thing. And they pulled it down and put new flats in, coun­cil flats. I was work­ing there with these guys. One thing that had changed about it was racial­ly. When I grew up every­one was white. Now it’s 50 – 50 black-and-white there. But they’re all the same, and they’re all tough. What had changed was drugs. We used to get drunk and have a fight. Now it’s drugs and they’ve got knives and pis­tols. There’s a lot of mon­ey in it. I used to sit down with these gang­ster guys, gangs, real­ly scary peo­ple; but not me because I am them, so there was no rea­son for me to be afraid – and every time I sat down with a new lot they’d say, First ques­tion: How did you get out of here Michael?” I felt so sor­ry for them.

You get an Oscar, its for a performance. You get a knighthood, its for a life.

How did you get out?

I went in the army. Prince Har­ry has just said some­thing that I agree with: bring back nation­al ser­vice. In Eng­land we served in the army for two years. And I did it. And you don’t have to do two years like we did, and you don’t have to go kill any­one like we did. Just six months of army train­ing and dis­ci­pline. Then you come out feel­ing that you deserve to live here because you’ve trained to defend this place, should some­one come. It’s a thing of loy­al­ty and I think it would be very impor­tant. When I came out I was one of the last lot to do nation­al ser­vice in 1953. I watched the younger gen­er­a­tion and they changed. The gen­er­a­tion that made the 60s were the ones who’d been in the army. The ones who made the 70s were the ones who went into the drugs.

You char­ac­ter in Youth doesn’t seem to give a shit about what the Queen asks or demands. What are your feel­ings about being knighted?

I was very proud. I love the monar­chy. I think they’re great and they’re a mas­sive tourist attrac­tion, too. If we didn’t have a monar­chy I think we’d have about a quar­ter of the tourists.

But for you personally?

You get an Acad­e­my Award, it’s for a per­for­mance. You get a knight­hood, it’s for a life.

Cary Grant once said: To be famil­iar with audi­ences is the most impor­tant thing.’ And it’s been writ­ten that you fol­lowed that kind of advice.

Yeah well he was famil­iar. He was in the cir­cus when he was sev­en or eight. I was very close friends with Cary Grant. I was doing a movie in Bris­tol, south of Eng­land, and I came out of my hotel suite one morn­ing and there’s Cary Grant walk­ing towards me. I didn’t know what to say because I was a big fan. I was like a young girl with Elvis Pres­ley. I said, You’re Cary Grant?’ He said, I know.’ So I tried to think of a more sen­si­ble ques­tion. I said, What are you doing here?’ He said, My moth­er lives in the suite next door to you.’ His moth­er was sick. Instead of putting her in a hos­pi­tal, he put her in a lux­u­ry suite in a hotel with nurs­es and every­thing. It wasn’t like a hos­pi­tal. She could get every­thing in: food, order room ser­vice. We became friends after that.

Is there a film in your career that you would hold near and dear, like Fred does for his Sim­ple Songs’ in Youth?

I sup­pose the film I hold dear­est is The Ipcress File. Because of the first time I ever went over the title.

Youth is released 29 Jan­u­ary. Read more in LWLies 63, out now and avail­able to buy from our online shop.

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