INTERVIEW: Michael Caine

So far 2008 hasn’t offered much for an Oscar shortlist beyond a few festival offerings that have yet to see a domestic release.  Certainly nothing in the way of powerhouse awards-caliber performances has come down the pike, leaving some to talk up smaller, menial turns amid the lull.  But one actor has certainly put forth an effort in the year’s first half that deserves the kind of recognition we cover here at In Contention.

In John Crowley’s “Is Anybody There?,” a delicate little film focused on the unlikely friendship between an aged magician and a death-obsessed young boy, Sir Michael Caine gives perhaps his best performance since 2002’s “The Quiet American.”

It is, of course, his first significant role in the seven years between the two films.  Supporting work in “Children of Men,” “The Prestige” and the Batman franchise has certainly been laudable, but in Crowley’s fourth feature the actor shows that he still has both the chops to carry a film and the courage to explore mortality in ways that unexpectedly cut close to home.  I had the chance to speak with Caine about the film last week and found a delightful legend trying his best to have a blast with the opportunities he’s given.

“It’s an attitude you have to have towards growing old,” he says, calling from London.  “People ask, ‘How do you feel about getting older?”  Well, what is the alternative?  I think it’s great.  I’m one of those people who tries to have fun the whole time.”

And whether it be the high-budget antics of a blockbuster like “The Dark Knight” or something as independent as Crowely’s film or Caine’s upcoming “Harry Brown,” the actor tries to approach all material with the same philosophy.

“Every time you work you meet these great actors that you haven’t met before,” he says.  “On this we were like a little tight group.  We were like a family.  The other ones are like ‘Grand Hotel,’ with people coming in and out.”

Indeed, on a film like “The Dark Knight,” Caine says he ultimately sees the film as the audience might.  While a film of that scale films for eight months, he might only work on it for two weeks, so the material is fresh when he sees the final product.  On something like “Is Anybody There?,” he enjoys the rare (these days) privilege of being with a project from beginning to end.

Peter Harness’ script for the film first crossed Caine’s path when friend David Heyman (producer of the “Harry Potter” films) brought it to him.  “One thing about the script that struck me forcibly was that I laughed a lot,” he says.  “I laugh at a lot of scripts but here I also found myself crying.  I thought if I could do that to an audience this would be great.

“I saw the script as a hill, where I bring the little boy up to being a proper little boy, instead of this strange character in an old peoples’ home, and he took me down the other side of the hill to the end of my life and guided me there.”

In the film, Caine stars as Clarence, a retired magician who moves into an assited living home in 1980s rural England.  He ultimately befriends Edward, a death-obsessed young boy who is largely an autobiographical depiction of screenwriter Harness.

Caine shares the screen with 13-year-old Bill Milner.  He says he sweated Crowley’s casting of the part for the longest time, because without a solid performer in the role of young Edward, the film would certainly have fallen like a house of cards.  The entire production was fortunate for Milner’s talent and work ethic, Caine says.

“It was like a relationship with an adult,” he says.  “I don’t mean he’s precocious or anything; he’s a true little boy.  I had complete confidence in him as an actor.  I was never worried about him holding up his side of the screen.  I felt that we were so lucky to get him and I think that he’s lucky in as much as he has a wonderful mother.  She’s not one of those theater mothers trying to live out their ambitions through the child.  She’s just so supportive of him and all she wants is his happiness.  She’s a lovely woman.”

Contrasting with this delightful coupling on the screen is Caine’s depiction of the downward spiral of the mind in the film’s final act as Clarence steadily succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease, the “going down the hill” portion of the script, as Caine would describe it.  Here the role hit Caine on a personal level because around the same time, one of his close friends was suffering from the disease.

“It was heart-wrending to do, but at least I knew how to do it properly because I’d had four or five years experience,” he says.  “It’s like watching someone walking away for five years and they never go over the horizon.  It’s a terrible thing.”

But Caine says he doesn’t talk about this angle of the film too much because, after all, at it’s heart, “Is Anybody There?” is not about an old man who has Alzheimer’s.  It is about the interaction of two people separated by generations but, in their own unique ways, forced to face the reality of death.

“I used to be a movie star, now I’m a movie actor,” Caine says of his career’s trajectory late in life, “which means now I don’t get the girl but I get the part.  I don’t have the ego to say that I’ve got to look as good as possible; I quite enjoy looking rough.  But every decade for me has been wonderful for different reasons.”

Indeed, Caine has been nominated for an Oscar in every single decade since the 1960s, a distinction he shares with only Jack Nicholson.  Though the actor had to read that tid-bit in the newspaper one day.  He wasn’t even aware.  He now enjoys the independence that comes with consistent success.

“I’m not working to pay the rent or anything,” he says.  “I sit and wait for scripts that I absolutely want to do, I work with whom I want to work and I don’t work very often.  I sit around and wait for a script to come along that makes me an offer I can’t refuse, which of course has nothing to do with money.  And I don’t think of retiring because the business retires you.  For instance, I don’t have another script to do where I’m a leading part.”

And yet as Caine muses about naturally fading away from the screen, we all know he’s sure to suit up alongside Christian Bale for at least one more turn as Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred in Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise, even if no “official” word has made its way out yet.  After “Harry Brown,” however, Caine is set to take a small role in Nolan’s sci-fi entry “Inception,” one of the industry’s most top secret projects.

“I have a little part in it, yes,” he says.  “Just a tiny part.  Chris and I are very good friends so I’ll do that little part.  I think I’ll work about three days.  It’ll be extraordinary, wait until you see this one.  I think if I say another word he’s going to kill me!”

For now, Caine seems to be quite content with whatever the day-to-day happens to present.  Caine “the movie star” (as he defines it) might be something of a distant memory, but with work in films like “Is Anybody There?,” he keeps proving that Caine “the movie actor” is alive and well.

“Is Anybody There?” is currently in limited domestic release.  It opens in the UK Friday, May 1.