You’ve come a long way in the world, from the streets of London to hobnobbing with all these stars. Let’s talk about your childhood. Is it true that your father worked at a fish market and your mother was a cleaning lady?

Michael Caine: That’s right, yeah.

What was it like growing up?

Michael Caine: It was fabulous because we were a happy family, which is the most important thing. We had just about enough money to be happy and to feed ourselves. Well, I didn’t feed anybody. But I had a wonderful mother and a great father, but the thing was that from the age of six to twelve, I never saw my father because he was in the army, and he was away in the Second World War.

So I grew up with my mother and a brother, Stanley. My mother was a wonderful woman. She made a man out of the two of us with one sentence. When my father went away, an army truck came and collected him. He got in the truck and waved goodbye, and it went around the corner — and I was six and my brother Stanley was three — and my mother looked at us, and she said, “Well, your dad’s gone. Now you two have to look after me.” She made little men out of us in one sentence, which still stays with me. I look after everybody. It’s amazing. It’s one sentence, and I was six.

During the Blitz, when the Germans were bombing London, a lot of children were removed from the city. We understand you stayed with a family who mistreated you. What happened?

Michael Caine: The family used to go away for the weekend, and there was me and another boy called Clarence. I’ll always remember “Clarence” was his name. And they used to lock us up on a Friday night in a room under the stairs and release us Monday morning when they came back from the weekend. They used to leave us tins of opened sardines and bottles of water, and that’s what we lived on. And Clarence and I all came out in sores, obviously, with this diet and everything.

My mother couldn’t get down because the Germans were bombing the railway. They didn’t bomb them permanently — there were pauses that they couldn’t get through or something went wrong — and there was a time when she could. After about three weeks — we’d been evacuated — and she came down and found us and took us away. And she hit the woman so hard that she nearly went to prison herself when she met the woman. She really beat her up, and she nearly went to jail. But when the police saw me and Clarence, they forgave her.

What did you look like when your mom saw you?

Michael Caine: Oh, we were covered in sores and everything, everywhere. You realize what diet — I didn’t know, I was six, seven by that time, yeah. But I just looked in the mirror, and I knew that something was drastically wrong.

What was it like in the cupboard?

Michael Caine: I suffer from incredible claustrophobia now. You can’t shut a door on me anywhere. The cupboard was just under the staircase. It was under the stairs — if you think of a staircase and the cupboard under the stairs and put two little boys in it, that’s what it was.

Were you able to eat better during the rest of the war?

Michael Caine: For me, the Second World War was an incredible thing. You couldn’t get food with any chemicals in it. There were no chemicals; all food was organic, and you couldn’t get sugar. It came from a long way away, and you couldn’t get sugar drinks. There was no Coca-Cola or anything like that — none of these — and the sugar, which is the most terrible thing.

Were the chemicals for the war effort?

Michael Caine: The chemicals were for the war effort, and the sugar came from the Caribbean, and it couldn’t get there because the German submarines were sinking the ships. So what happened was, those of us who grew up in the war, we grew up on the most incredible diet; it was fabulous. I didn’t know about bloody sugar and everything. But you didn’t get a lot of fruit; you got a lot of apples and pears, which were grown in England. But the only tropical fruit which — every child in England, at Christmas, got an apple and an orange. You got one apple and one orange a year for six years. I grew up like that, and it was very fortunate — using the difficulty again without knowing it — to grow up on organic food. Everyone said — you couldn’t get any other food but organic. You couldn’t get it.

Were you able to go back to your house after the war?

Michael Caine: No. What happened was, in the war, we got bombed out in the war, and we were in the country, so it didn’t hurt us. It was amazing — bombed out — because if you go and see the building where I lived now — and it’s still there — and you’ll say, “I thought Michael Caine said he got bombed out. It’s this building. The building is a hundred years old.” What it was, in the next street to us, a rocket dropped. When the Germans had the rockets, they dropped, and they just obliterated a street. They were silent; they weren’t like the buzz bombs. And this — Horsman Street, it was called — and I was there the other day, and it’s just full of flats. There’s no street left; there’s just a sign. What happened was, when the bomb — when that rocket dropped on Horsman Street, it blew all our doors and windows out. It didn’t hurt the building. It just blew all the doors and windows out, so we couldn’t live in it.

They put us in what they used to call prefabricated houses. They were made of asbestos, and they came from Canada; they were made in Canada. I was in this house, and you would say, “Oh, poor boy.” This was the most fabulous house for me. For a start, we had a little garden. We’d never had a garden. And for the first time in my life, I lived in a house with electric light, central heating, a bathroom, and an indoor toilet and hot water. I’d never lived in a house like that. So for me, this pre-fab, which to everybody was a load of crap, was the height of luxury.

There’s a painting of you in your gorgeous apartment here on the Thames. Your wife said that she asked the artist, “Why did you make Michael look angry?” And the artist said, “Because he’s a fighter.” Do you think you’re a fighter?

Michael Caine: I come from a very tough and rough background, the Elephant and Castle where I grew up. I was in a gang, but my gang, we weren’t in a gang in order to beat people up or do anything. We were in a gang to defend ourselves so that we never got beaten up.

Because the Elephant and Castle — when I grew up, there were the gangsters who were called “spivs,” which is “VIPs” backwards. That’s a very cockney thing. They wore trilby hats — they all wore trilby hats — they had razor blades sewn in the brim so they’d just whack you if you — you know. It was a very rough area. Some of my uncles were spivs and that, but I wasn’t rough and that. I was rough in self-defense. I would never attack anybody. I was more sensitive than that. I became an actor; I didn’t become a thug. No, I’m tough. I’m fabulous until you get on the wrong side, and then there’s quite a surprise to come.

What would you see?

Michael Caine: You don’t want to go there.

Anger?

Michael Caine: Oh, yeah, I have a terrible temper. I never lose it. I can’t remember — years ago, I lost my temper, but I never lose it.

What’s the kind of thing that would trigger it? What do you get upset about?

Michael Caine: I think injustice, without being a great big word. Injustice. Injustice just to people, one person to another person, that’s what gets me. Things like racial prejudice and all that, those upset me as well.

The other gang members that you grew up with had very different lives.

Michael Caine: Oh, yeah. I did a movie called Get Carter, and that was based on a gangster that I knew at the Elephant and Castle. He’d never been charged with murder, but I knew he’d killed at least four people. But we all knew — not I knew, we all knew — he’d killed at least four people. And I made this movie about a gangster — and I based it on him — called Get Carter.

I was in the discotheque, and he came in, and he saw me, and he said, “I just seen that movie of yours, that film Get Carter.” I said, “Yeah?” I said, “What did you think?” He said, “Biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever seen in my life.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because of you,” he said. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re playing a gangster robbing everybody, and you have no responsibilities.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “You weren’t a married man, Michael, with children. You were just doing it” — letting himself off because he had six kids. “Oh, all right” — whatever he said, I agreed with, obviously.

How did you know that you wanted to be an actor?

Michael Caine: Because I was an amateur actor in the youth club. I went in for all the wrong reasons. I was in the basketball team, and I used to go up on the roof of the club to play basketball, and I always would pass this door with some windows in it, and all the prettiest girls in the club were in there. And I said, “What’s that? Why are they all in there?” And they said, “It’s the drama class.” So I joined the drama class.

There was a very beautiful girl I wanted to kiss. I thought, “Maybe I’ll be in a play with her, and I’ll have to kiss her.” I was very shy with girls and all that, and I didn’t know what to do, so I joined the drama class. And I became absolutely — obviously — enthralled by drama and acting and everything.

Did you like acting because you were good at it?

Michael Caine: Yeah. The first time I came on, I came on, and I got a laugh, and I thought that was funny. I hadn’t said anything yet, and I didn’t realize my flies were undone. I always remembered that laugh. I was so happy to get the laugh. It felt fabulous. And I remember my first little part in the youth club was in R.U.R, which was a famous play about robots called Rossum’s Universal Robots. And I played a robot, and it said, “Expressionless, emotionless person Michael Caine was perfect.” Not Michael Caine, Maurice Micklewhite! I was only 12.

What enthralled you about acting?

Michael Caine: Getting laughs and controlling people, making people cry, doing that, being able to do that. But I mean when I think of people saying, “I want to be rich and famous,” I became an actor knowing absolutely, positively that I would never be rich and famous.

Because?

Michael Caine: Because I had a thick cockney accent, which, in those days, no one wrote a part for anyone with a thick — you might be the policeman who comes in at the end.

What did your accent sound like?

Michael Caine: My accent was like that; you talk like that. You’re all a bit higher. You have to be like that. Because they talk through their nose and, of course, actors speak from the diaphragm because you have to reach the back of the theater.

Did Maurice speak like that?

Michael Caine: No. Maurice talked like that — very quietly, with a slight menace in the voice. Because I was always suspicious of everyone around me because you never knew who it was, what was going to happen. So you always kept a very straight face and talked like that, quietly, and the accent was a bit thicker than it is now, and you just worry about things.

You’ve done 150 movies. Do you remember the moment where you realized you could do this? A moment when you knew you were pretty good at this acting thing?

Michael Caine: Yeah, the first review I got for The Ipcress File — the first review I saw was very complimentary to me, and I thought, “Oh, my God, I’ve made it!” Because the first time I ever played the lead in a movie was a picture called The Ipcress File, which was a spy story. I’d already been in a successful movie called Zulu, but I played a very posh officer in that; I didn’t play anyone like me. In The Ipcress File, it was a sort of cockney spy, so it was more like the real me — not that I was ever a spy, but at least I was a cockney.

Remembering your motto of “Use the difficulty,” you wore glasses in real life. And instead of taking the glasses off for the movie…

Michael Caine: We wore them. I wore them in The Ipcress File as Harry Palmer — great big, dark frames. And a wonderful thing happened. There was a very famous silent film star who wore glasses called Harold Lloyd. He came to England, and he took me to dinner when he was very old. It’s very funny because the attitude then — you were talking about the attitude towards women and everything. And there was a bit of an attitude like that towards men of a certain kind, inasmuch as, in Ipcress File, I wore glasses, and I was trying to seduce this girl, and the way I was doing it, I was going to cook her dinner in my flat. So I went shopping in a supermarket, and they saw the rushes in America and said, “Leading man looks effeminate. He’s cooking, shopping, and wearing glasses!”

Did you do anything different after that?

Michael Caine: No, but the next film I made was Alfie, where he seduced ten women.

Is there any movie that you wish you hadn’t made?

Michael Caine: I think The Swarm would have been one.

What was The Swarm?

Michael Caine: The Swarm was about an attack of bees, and it was made in Hollywood, and the reason I made it is I was so impressed because I was with Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Olivia de Havilland, and José Ferrer — all the big Hollywood stars — and this was my second movie in Hollywood. I’d just made Gambit with Shirley MacLaine. Shirley brought me to Hollywood.

We were making this picture, and I thought it was going to be great because of all these stars — and I realized, eventually, the one scene — there was one scene where I realized that maybe the film wasn’t any good. Because it was Henry Fonda and me — we had a scene with no jackets on. We had white shirts, and there was this big scene where all the bees were above us in a big swarm in this sort of greenhouse. And halfway through the scene, I was looking at him, and he was looking at me, and there were all little black dots all over our shirts. The bees were all crapping on us, and unfortunately, that was the first review. We didn’t know it at the time, but that was the first review: “It was a load of crap.”

But I tell it now — here’s a “use the difficulty” — I was in this, and I realized very quickly this was a load of rubbish. And what I did — I was with some, as I’ve just said, some of the most experienced and famous Hollywood stars. I never went into my dressing room when I wasn’t in the shot. I sat and watched them, all day, every day, to see what they did and how they did it. And that was an extreme example of me using the difficulty. And I was covered in bee crap, as well, all the time.

Why did that movie fail with all those great stars?

Michael Caine: Because the plot didn’t work. The plot’s got to work, you know! All these bees came up from Brazil and attacked the United States. I’d hardly read the script. When I heard the cast, I said, “I’ll do it!” I thought, “Bloody hell! Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, José Ferrer, Olivia de Havilland? You can’t do better than that.” Richard Widmark!

You’ve been married to a lot of famous Hollywood stars in your movies, from Jane Fonda to Elizabeth Taylor, Glenda Jackson, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren. And you’ve been the father figure for even more, from Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman, Anne Hathaway. If you look back, is there anything these actors have in common?

Michael Caine: Funnily enough, what they have is an incredible professionalism. You know, they know their lines, and they don’t muck about, and there’s no massive temperament with them, even someone like Elizabeth Taylor, who was a massive star. It always makes me laugh when people say, “Why are men paid so much more than women?” I say, “Have you ever made a picture with Elizabeth Taylor?” I said, “She was paid about 300 times more than I was, and I was on screen more than she was.”

These great actors, did any of them ever get nervous or have any other issues?

Michael Caine: I did a picture called Sleuth with Laurence Olivier, and we rehearsed it for two weeks because it was just the two of us — there are only two people in the movie. And he was mumbling, fumbling a bit, the first week of rehearsals. He wasn’t very impressive. The second week, he put a mustache on — stuck a mustache on his face — and he started acting, and he was brilliant.

And we were all stunned! It was the real Laurence Olivier. And we all said, “Well, that’s fantastic.” And I said, “What? You wore a mustache!” And he said to me, “I cannot act with my own face.” He said, “I can’t do it.” And he said, “And I’ve tried. You saw me in the first week’s rehearsal, and it didn’t work, and I’ve done it.”

But the other wonderful thing about Laurence Olivier, talking about a class system — I mean I’m cockney and all that. When I was going to do this picture with Laurence Olivier, before we started rehearsals, he sent me a letter — he was “Lord Olivier” — and he sent me a letter saying, “It has occurred to me that you may be wondering how you should address me because of my title.” He said, “Well, the moment we shake hands, I’ll be ‘Larry’ forever,” which I thought was a great thing.

You, Laurence Olivier and Jack Nicholson are the only actors ever to be nominated in five different decades for an Academy Award.

Michael Caine: We all worked together. We were friends, you know, especially Jack. Because Jack — it’s one of those things, you know, it’s amazing, but Jack was the one, when I retired and went to Miami — I wasn’t going to do another movie, and it was Jack who I met there. He was living there at that time. And then we became friends, and then one day, he said, “I’ve got a script called Blood and Wine. There’s a good part for you in it.” I said, “I’m retired, Jack. I’m over it.” And he said, “Read it. Read it.” And I read it, and it was great, and he was the one who brought me back to working because I hadn’t worked for two years, and I was very happy in Miami with my restaurants and everything. And I came back, and that’s what started this whole thing of going again.

What’s it like working with Jack Nicholson?

Michael Caine: Fabulous. For a start, we were great friends, and then, he’s one of the best actors in the world, best movie actors I’ve ever come across. And he’s funny. I mean he has a sort of attitude towards things. I remember, one day we were in Miami — we shot this movie in Miami, where we were living, and we had to shoot a sunset. And we were walking along, and the assistant director was shouting to everybody, “Hurry up, the sun is — Hurry up! Hurry up!” And I started to run, and he said, “Michael, don’t run.” He said, “Let’s just walk fast so no one notices.” He said, “Well, if you start running, they’ll know that we’re late.” That was the way he looked at life.

What was it like working with Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King?

Michael Caine: Oh, it was easy because we were great friends, and we just had the best time, and it was a wonderful movie. And John Huston! Christopher Plummer played Rudyard Kipling, couldn’t get any better than that.

How did you get along with John Huston?

Michael Caine: I remember, I was working with John Huston, who was one of my favorite directors, and I said to him, one day, I said, “John, you never give me any direction.” And John Huston said, “You get paid a great deal of money to do this, Michael. You don’t need me to tell you what to do.” So I said, “All right.” But then he said another thing. He did give me one direction. I was doing a speech, and I thought I was doing very well, and I hadn’t dried or fluffed or anything, and he said, “Cut!” And I said, “What?” And he said, “You can speak faster, Michael. He’s an honest man.” So whenever I meet someone who says, “Hello… Michael… How… are… you?” I go, “Wait a minute. What’s he up to?” You know?

But I remember, Sean had to walk — Sean Connery, at the end of the movie — had to walk on a very dangerous bridge, a little tiny bridge over a big drop. And Sean got to the day of shooting, and he looked at it, and he said to John, he said, “I was here yesterday,” he said, “and that bridge was straight. Today it’s crooked.” And John said, “Yesterday, you didn’t have to walk on it, today you do. That’s why it’s crooked.”

Did you have to walk on the bridge?

Michael Caine: No, I tried to walk on the bridge the day before with Sean because he was testing it, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the courage; it was too high — miles up — it was terrible. I got about two yards out and came back again.

You’ve won so many awards, including two Oscars. Have they made a difference in your life?

Michael Caine: Well, they’ve made me very happy. I was so proud when I won the Academy Award. But the first Academy Award, I wasn’t there. I was making — oh, I was making another dreadful movie, Jaws: The Revenge! They said, “Will you do two weeks on Jaws: The Revenge?” I said yes. I’d made this picture with Woody Allen, and Woody was very anti-Oscars, you know. So you knew you’d never get nominated for Hannah and Her Sisters. So you knew you’d never get nominated for a Woody Allen picture. And so they did this movie at the time of the Oscars. I said, “Well, I’m not going to get nominated.” And I did it, and of course, I got nominated and I won.

Were you shocked?

Michael Caine: I was stunned. I was stunned that I got nominated, and then I was stunned that I won it. But I was in Nassau, making Jaws: The Revenge, which everyone tells me was a terrible picture. But as I always say, “I got paid a great deal of money,” so I say, “I never saw the movie, but I saw the house it bought my mother, and it was fabulous!”

Was she impressed? She was a woman who cleaned offices and homes and you became a big star all over the world. What did she think?

Michael Caine: She didn’t understand it, really. Because one day she said to me, “How much do you get for a film?” So I said, “A million pounds.” And she said, “How much is that?” She had no idea. I said, “It means that you never have to work again in your life. You get a free house. You get everything.” And she did.

My mother — I’ll give you an example of my mother. I did a movie called Zulu, which was my first big part, lots of dialogue and everything. And I said to her, “Come to the premiere with me.” And she said, “No, you’ve got a girlfriend. Take a date.” She said, “No, I’m not coming to the premiere. It’s your evening.” And I’m going into the premiere with whoever the girl was, I have no idea, and I see my mother in the crowd, waving. I got so angry with her, but that’s so typical of my mother.

Why did she do that?

Michael Caine: Because she didn’t want to interfere with what I was doing, but she wanted to see what I was doing. Another time, I took her to Beverly Hills, and it was February in England, so it was cold and snowy and damp, and Beverly Hills was all sunny with all flowers growing and everything. And as we were driving along in the car through Beverly Hills, I said, “What do you think of Beverly Hills, Mum?” And she said, “It’s so lovely. All that hysteria growing up the walls.” It’s wisteria. And I said — she was a bit of a Mrs. Malaprop, and she said, “All that hysteria growing up the walls.” And I thought, “You’ve got Beverly Hills absolutely right.”

You’ve said you had great parents. What made them great?

Michael Caine: They put themselves second to you without letting you know it so that you didn’t become conceited. I remember another Beverly Hills story. I was great friends with David Hockney, and his mum came to Beverly Hills, and I said, “Bring her over to my house with my mum, and we’ll have tea on Sunday.” So they came over, and Mrs. Hockney was looking out the window around Beverly Hills, and I said, “What do you think of it?” She said, “Oh, it’s lovely.” In a North Country accent, she said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand.” I said, “What’s that?” She said, “Well, there’s all this lovely sunshine and nobody’s got any washing hanging out.” I said, “You hang out washing in Beverly Hills, you get shot.”

David Hockney, too? It sounds like you know everybody in Hollywood.

Michael Caine: Oh blimey, yeah. We lived in Hollywood for ten years. My wife is a fabulous woman and everybody loved her. It wasn’t me; it was her. She made our social life. My wife is an amazing woman. But we had a wonderful time in Beverly Hills, and my youngest daughter grew up in Beverly Hills. Now we’re trying to get a period where the children — my grandchildren — are off school and we can take them to Beverly Hills and she can show them where she grew up.

Tell us how you met your wife. How long have you been married?

Michael Caine: Forty-seven years.

How’d you meet her?

Michael Caine: Well, I was with my best male friend, and we were going out every night to discotheques, getting bombed out of our minds and chasing girls and all that. And then one night, I said, “Let’s do something we never do: watch television. We’ll stay in.” I’m a good cook, and he knew I was a good cook. I said, “I’ll cook dinner and we’ll just watch the television.” So we watched the television. It wasn’t very good, and then an advert came on for Maxwell House coffee. And a Brazilian girl — dark Brazilian girl — was in it, and I fell in love with this girl on the television. And I thought, “Well!” And I had some money. I was working. I was already a star in movies, so I had plenty of money. So I said to my mate, “We’ll go to Brazil in the morning.” I said, “We’ll find her. I’ve got to find this girl.”

Then we got sort of restless, and there was a discotheque — we went to discotheques, you know. My best friend owned it, called Tramp. Johnny Gold owned it, and I said, “Let’s go down and have a drink with Johnny.” I got all excited. I didn’t want to go to bed. And we were sitting there, and another man came in, and he said, “Oh, hello! You three sitting here, no girls? What’s going on?”

And I said, “No, I just came out for a drink. I’m going to Brazil tomorrow.” He said, “What for?” I said, “Well, I’ve seen this girl on television, she’s Brazilian.” And I said, “She’s beautiful, and I’m in love with her, and I’m going to find her.” He said, “I’ve been watching television all evening. I didn’t see any beautiful girls.” I said, “No, she wasn’t in a program.” I said, “She was in a commercial.” So he said, “What commercial?” I said, “Maxwell House coffee.” He said, “We make that!” I said, “You make that commercial?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “That girl’s not Brazilian; she’s Indian.” He said, “She lives in the Fulham Road,” and I got her phone number off him.

Then I phoned her, and she wouldn’t go out with me, and then, on the 11th night that I phoned her — and this is a very important thing that I’ve thought about — I’ve been married to this woman, very happily, with a fabulous life, for 47 years — and on that 11th night, I had said, “If she doesn’t go out with me, I’m not going to phone again.” And that night, she came out with me, not because she wanted to. She couldn’t get rid of me on the phone; she was going to get rid of me personally. But it didn’t work out that way because we met and fell in love instantly, at first sight.

A commercial is only thirty seconds. How did you fall in love with this woman?

Michael Caine: I don’t know. I don’t know why I did it. I just saw this girl, and I thought, “That’s the one for me,” and I was right.

And when you want to be charming on the phone, what do you say to someone you’ve never met that you want to marry?

Michael Caine: Oh, I didn’t tell her I wanted to marry her on the phone. What I did was I got her to come out with me, eventually, and she came out with me in order to get rid of me personally because she couldn’t get rid of me over the phone. I was a nuisance; I was phoning every evening.

What did you say on the phone? “Hello, I saw you on TV”?

Michael Caine: Yeah. “I just seen you in the commercial. Would you like to have some dinner this evening? Any restaurant in London you want,” and all that. And I picked her up in a Rolls Royce because I owned a Rolls Royce by that time.

You’ve now been married almost 50 years, which is almost unheard of in Hollywood. What’s the secret?

Michael Caine: I just think it’s just love, that’s all. Just true love. We just happen to love each other so much. We’re devoted to each other, and we never spend any time apart. I had an experience recently. My wife’s mother, who lives in New York, was not very well. My wife flew to New York for four days to see her, and that was the first time I’ve been separated from my wife in 46 years. I’ve never been on my own ever. But I was very lucky because I have an older daughter, and she spent the time with me.

Is there any movie that you’re especially glad you made, for some particular reason?

Michael Caine: It was the happiest movie I ever made. It was called Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Steve Martin — and it was wonderful — and Glenne Headly, who was great. Glenne, who was a woman, died of a heart attack at 51. You don’t connect heart attacks to women, let alone women of 51, and Glenne, I was so unhappy about that. But I had a wonderful time; we had a great time, the three of us. We were in my favorite place, the French Riviera. I had a villa they’d rented for me for the whole summer, between two of my closest friends, Roger Moore and the composer Leslie Bricusse, and I had my family with me, my children, everybody, all the summer, and it was the happiest film I ever made.

You ‘ve played Americans onscreen, as well as Britons, and very effectively. When you have to learn an American accent, how do you do it and how long does it take?

Michael Caine: Well, it’s quite weird because, you see, there’s no such thing as an American accent. There are about 50 of them, you know, and I did a movie, The Cider House Rules. My dialogue coach said, “Do an American accent.” So I did it, and he said, “That’s California.” He said, “It’s very good, but you’re playing New England.” So I learned New England, which has more English in it. You know what I mean? And I did it, and I got wonderful reviews for my accent in New England. I won an Academy Award for the part. And the British critics — because of the English that was in it — they said, “Michael Caine can’t do an American accent.”

But I did another one. I did a Texas accent in a movie. I forget the title now. The kids love it. My grandchildren love this movie — I forget it. Anyway, I did a Texas accent, and on the first day, I said, talking to the coach — he said, “Well, let me explain a Texas accent to you.” He said, “All the words lean on each other.” And of course, I knew immediately what — everybody talks like that, and it just leans on each other. It’s quite amazing how clever they are at doing these things.

You must have a good ear for these things.

Michael Caine: I probably do. If you remember, I was in rep for nine years. I played everybody. I’ve played Welshmen, Irishmen, cockneys, North Country.

A lot of people get to be 65 or 70 and think it’s time to retire. What do you say to people who are 65 and 70?

Michael Caine: Have one more go. See if it works. If something comes along, do it. Retirement, as I said, in the movies — the movies retire you; you don’t retire from the movies. But if you’re doing a job that you hate — because you can’t wait to retire and get your pension and sit and watch telly. It’s a completely different attitude if you’re someone who’s doing what they like doing. I used to do acting for nothing. People didn’t used to drill roads for nothing.

You turned 70 in March 2003. That was 15 years ago, and since then, you’ve done at least three-dozen movies and — you’ve said — seven of your best.

Michael Caine: Yeah, exactly.

So what’s your message to people who are in their later years?

Michael Caine: Be very careful about retiring because you don’t know what’s out there. What happened to me is I retired twice. I wrote two autobiographies, you know. What happened to me was I was about 65, and I got a script from a producer, and I sent it back. I said, “The part’s too small.” He said, “I didn’t want you to read the lover. I wanted you to read the father.”

And I thought, “Oh, my God, it’s over” because if you don’t get the girl, you’re no longer a movie star, you know. But what I didn’t realize is that when you get older, you don’t get the girl, you get the part. So you don’t get to kiss the girl, you get an Academy Award. But I didn’t know all that. I mean I went to Miami; I started a whole new life for the winter, you know. I bought an apartment there and a restaurant and I was having a wonderful time when Chris Nolan turned up with Batman, you know.

How did Christopher Nolan come into your life?

Michael Caine: Christopher Nolan — it was one Sunday morning, my house in the country. The front door is glass, and there was a man standing there with a script in his hand. I answered it, and I said, “Come in,” and directly, he said his name. I knew who he was because he’d done three wonderful, very small movies — artistic, very award-winning movies.

And I thought, “This is wonderful. I’ll get something here, might be Academy Award or something. It’ll be a great part.” So he said, “I’ve got a script here for you.” I said, “What’s it called?” He said, “Batman Begins.” I said, “Batman?” He said, “Yeah.” Because this is a great big thing, and this guy had only made three little, tiny movies. And I thought, “My God, how did he get to do that?” You know?

And I thought to myself, “Well, I’m too old to play Batman. I think I’m going to be the butler.” So I said to Chris, I said, “But who am I going to be, the butler?” He said, “Yeah, you’re going to be the butler.” So I said, “Oh, well.” I said, “What do I say? ‘Dinner is served.’ ‘Would you like another glass of red wine?’ Is that my dialogue?” He said, “No.” He said, “Read it. Because the butler was Batman’s foster father because he died,” he said, “So he’s much more important than that.” And then I read it. And for me, that was an incredible thing because there I was, and I’d retired twice.

How old were you then when Christopher Nolan came knocking?

Michael Caine: About 72 or 73. And here I was, starting a whole new career and then made six of the best movies with Chris Nolan I’d ever made. I got an Academy Award for Cider House Rules, and this was after I’d retired, twice.

So your retirement has not turned out as planned?

Batman made a difference because I’m recognized by young people — because young people all saw Batman. I was walking along Regent Street in London the other day, and there was this party of little Japanese teenagers, and they all started going, “Alfred! Alfred!” And my name was “Alfred,” and they’d all seen me in Batman, you know. So I’m standing there with a load of teenage Japanese girls, signing autographs.

Is there any character that you’ve played that’s come close to you, the real Michael Caine?

Michael Caine: I would say Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, a kind of ambitious young cockney. That was me.

Are you still ambitious at 85?

Michael Caine: Well, you have to be. I want to be better than I was the last time. That’s all my ambition is. What happens is, in the movie business, you don’t retire. The movie business retires you. And if a producer has enough confidence in you, at your age, whatever it is, you remember there are people in movies are who 85. So what do you do? You get an actor who’s 85 to play it. And it’s a big compliment that they choose you. They choose me, in other words. And so I repay him with the hardest work that I can do and the best performance I can give.

Is there anything you do to get into character when you’re on set?

Michael Caine: It’s always last minute. It’s relaxation with me, to get rid of the nerves and everything. The last thing I do before I go on set is I bend right over so that the blood goes to my brain and I remember the lines, you know. But I disappear into the character, and I’m very — some actors, it’s all tension and everything. I work out of relaxation. I’m telling jokes and making people laugh right up until the last minute with the technicians, you know. And I work on a very relaxed set because I was made a knight. I was Sir Michael Caine, and I go on the set, and I immediately say to everybody, “Get rid of ‘What are you going to call him?’” I just say, “Everyone calls me Michael, okay?” and that’s it. So you start off like that, and I act out of relaxation, and then I go right down to an absolute relaxing, and I walk on, and I’m the guy, whoever he is.

What’s the hardest part about being an actor?

Michael Caine: Learning the lines. It’s the hardest part. It’s so difficult to learn massive, long speeches. Any actor will tell you it’s a nightmare — and getting up at half past six in the morning. That’s tough. I get up at nine deliberately now just to prove I’m not working.

When you are working, even in your 80s, you’re still learning and memorizing all these lines?

Michael Caine: Oh, yeah. I don’t forget the lines just because I’m old, but what it does — it takes me ten times longer to learn them. I used to learn a page of dialogue, and the director would say, “Oh, we’ve written a new page; learn that.” And I’d go, “Yeah, all right. Ready.” Now I’d say, “I’ll come back next week.”

Hollywood has retired a lot of people who didn’t want to retire; they just got too old. Why is Michael Caine the exception?

Michael Caine: I don’t know. I think it’s because I’m not a movie star, so I’m not relying on my looks, fortunately. And I’m also an actor. I was a stage actor, you know, and I do characters, and I’m cheap. That keeps you in the movie business. I’m cheap for movie stars, who get ten to twenty million dollars. I don’t get ten or twenty million dollars for a movie.

And there are always older parts. I mean I did one with Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin — Going in Style — about three old-age burglars. And what they did also in the movie industry — when they released The Marigold Hotel, with Maggie Smith in India, that made a fortune.

They didn’t know it, and then suddenly, and I remember they did an examination of The Marigold Hotel — the producers association — and what they had forgotten was that there was a load of old people at home watching television. They were making movies for young people, and these people had no movies to go out and see. They started to make them, and they’re still making movies for old people and making a lot of money on them.

And you’re still following your own advice of “use the difficulty.”

Michael Caine: I’ll tell you one “using the difficulty.” I have a book out called Blowing the Bloody Doors Off. How I wrote that book was, I was very busy, and I was going to write the book anyway. Then I broke my ankle, and I was sitting watching TV all day for nine months, and instead of doing that, I turned the TV off and wrote the book. And that was using the difficulty. That’s my most recent example of doing that.

You’ve come so far in your life, from having so little to having so much. How has it affected you?

Michael Caine: One of the reasons I wrote the book is I worry about people like me — like I was — a nobody from nowhere who knew nothing about anything. You’re sitting there: “What do I do with my life?” And the first part of the book is telling you to find out what you want to do and become the best at it that you can possibly be. Don’t worry about becoming rich and famous because if you’re going to be, you will, and if you’re not, you’re not, but at least you’ll be happy.

Another reason I wrote the book, too, was I was watching television one day. And I was watching — they were interviewing young people about what they wanted to do with their lives, and everybody explained what they wanted to do. But I noticed that many of them said they wanted to be rich and famous, which I thought was the wrong way of starting out life, trying to be rich and famous, because you’re probably guaranteeing that you will never be. The right way to start out is to find out what you really want to do, and be the best at it that you could possibly be. That’s the way to do it.

Other people might get upset if a movie flopped or they got a bad critique. But this doesn’t seem to bother you. Why is that?

Michael Caine: Use the difficulty of flopped movies. The thing is, when you make a flop movie, it means you made a bad choice. Then you make another one, it’s another bad choice, and then there’s another bad choice. Then there’s the other actor, who sits there and says, “Oh, I’m very good. I wouldn’t have done that movie. I wouldn’t have done that movie. I wouldn’t have done that movie.” And then I get the movie that’s a big success for me. And he gets a movie which could be a big success for him. But he hasn’t worked for two years, and I haven’t stopped working. I was making crap films, but I was working, and I go straight into the great film, absolutely ready to work. And he’s practically crapping himself because he hasn’t worked for two years.

There’s a “use the difficulty” of making flop movies. They keep you working, keep you experiencing, keep you going. So to bring that back to sort of someone, to a young person, you say, “You must keep going. Just don’t sit there waiting for the big thing to come. Keep going.” You know, if it’s an actor, you do a small part just to keep going. Don’t make great spaces in your life where you don’t do what you do.

Is it more important to stay in motion than it is to worry that you’ve chosen the right opportunity?

Michael Caine: Yeah, you’ve got to stay in motion. I didn’t know that. I’ve learned that from my own experience because whenever the great script came along, I was absolutely ready because I had just finished one a month ago, not two years. You imagine — you haven’t worked for two years, and you get this great part.

“I learned to find the good in terrible situations.” You wrote that in your book.

Michael Caine: You always try to make something good of it. You know what I mean? It was like, as I told you, in The Swarm, when I wasn’t acting, I didn’t sit in my dressing room watching television or anything. I sat and watched the other famous actors, experienced actors, like Fonda — big Hollywood actors — working. I had an attitude towards life where I never took any time off. I was always doing something, and I’m still doing it. You know, I’ve written three books, three autobiographies, sort of, including this one. I’m writing a fiction book now, you know. I just keep writing. I just keep doing something.

If you don’t mind a big question, are you religious?

Michael Caine: Yes, I am, but from a point of view of religions, my father was a Catholic; my mother was a Protestant; I was educated when I was evacuated — because of a blunder in school — by Jews; and I’m married to a Muslim. So I’m not — you know — but I do believe in God, and the only reason I believe in God is because I have to. The reason of that is that if you’ve had my life, you’d have to believe in God. There was a very famous American boxer called Rocky Marciano, who wrote a book called Somebody Up There Likes Me, and if he hadn’t used that title, I would have used it.

You called your new book Blowing the Bloody Doors Off. What does that mean?

Michael Caine: That comes from a movie called The Italian Job, where we were doing — we were crooks, and we were trying to steal some gold. I had this explosive expert, and he’d put explosives on the door of the van where the gold was, to blow the doors off so that we could get the gold inside. And in the movie, when the explosion goes, the entire van and everything is blown into smithereens. And I look at him, and I say, “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” That’s where that title comes from.

Just because it’s a good line, or does it have something to do with life?

Michael Caine: It’s something to do with life. It’s the last line in the book, actually. It means you’re going to go out there and get on with it!

A lot of actors and comedians do imitations of you. Who’s the best?

Michael Caine: One of the best ones I saw was Tom Hanks. He did it on Saturday Night Live, but he was very quiet, very, very quiet. We met a couple of times, but we’re not friends or anything, but he seemed to get it right. What they do is, when I played cockney parts, they always do my accent as a cockney but thicker than my accent that I’m speaking to you now. This is just a London accent that you can understand. They go “But not many people know that.” That’s how impersonations go. “My name is Michael Caine. Not many people know that.” That’s my impersonation of me.

Did you ever do imitations of other actors you liked?

Michael Caine: Who do I do? Oh, I know! I remember once, Richard Burton, I said to him — I saw him in Hamlet when I was a young a man. I lived near the Old Vic. The Elephant and Castle where I come from is near the Old Vic, and when I was a very young man, I went and saw him, when I was younger, about 21, 22. And I got to know him later because I did a picture with Elizabeth (Taylor), and she was married to Richard, and I was talking to him.

I said, “I saw you years ago in Hamlet at the Old Vic. I said, “The thing that struck me about it,” I said, “was that it was the fastest Hamlet I’ve ever seen. You went, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’” And I said, “It was so bloody fast!” And he said, “Well, you have to remember, Michael,” he said, “the pub shut at half past ten then.” That’s it. I did that so you’d hear my impersonation.

That was great! Thank you.