In recent years, the East London native has become Mr. Hollywood, wowing audiences in “The Cider House Rules” and “The Quiet American.” Now he’s starring in the soon-to-be-released “The Statement,” based on the book of the same name by Brian Moore. Caine’s character, Pierre Brossard, a French policeman and Nazi sympathizer who orders the execution of seven Jews, spends decades on the lam after WWII. NEWSWEEK’s Nicki Gostin swapped a bit o’ banter with Hollywood’s favorite Cockney. Excerpts:
What drew you to this role?
At this stage of my life I look for extremely difficult roles to keep myself amused. A French Nazi was about as far away from me as I could get.
What are your own recollections of growing up in London during the war?
Of being evacuated and coming back. The Blitz seemed to become a homogenous gel. It was a big blast of some weapon and then a calm and then we used to come back from the country, thinking it was all over. We all expected the war to end the next week. So you went to the country, came back and thought, It’s all over, and then you ran away again.
When you became famous in 1960s Britain, it was very hip to be from a working-class background. Do you think you would have necessarily been as successful a generation before?
No, I don’t think so. A generation earlier I wouldn’t have been able to break into theater. I started in theater, and it would have been very difficult for me to break in with no speech training, plus my own class- conscious cussedness in deciding to never ever lose my Cockney accent. I do upper-crust and plain English for money. My Cockney accent is me.
What do you think of the class system now?
Rigid but impotent. That sounds like an oxymoron. But what happened was there was a class system which had power and could do harm. The same class system is there but it’s only in the minds of the people. It’s powerless and harmless now. We completely bypassed it. It’s still there now but it doesn’t make any difference.
You were famous for a while for making a lot of rubbish movies–
No, I wasn’t. Not at all.
Well, then why did you say yes to “Jaws: The Revenge”?
Well, I’d said yes to lots of small parts in films. If you get a guest part in a movie you go, “All right, I’ll do that.” I only take responsibility for movies that I take the lead in.
In the past few years, you’ve done some really wonderful movies. Did you decide to take on only quality projects?
I got to a stage where I sort of retired. I opened eight restaurants. I wrote an autobiography. I had a massive penthouse in South Beach, Miami. I was having a very happy time and I wasn’t never going to go back to work–and then Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson turned up with a picture called “Blood and Wine.” Jack is an old friend of mine and said, “Why don’t you do it?” and I thought, Well, the thing’s set in Miami, I’m already here.
I had such a wonderful time doing it, I decided to come back and act again but on my own terms, which meant that I didn’t have to work from a financial point of view. I would only do something with people whom I wanted to be doing things that I wanted to get up at 6:30 in the morning to do. Also, you change from a young leading man to a character leading man, which is what I’ve done. I’ve changed from a movie star to a movie actor and now I’m having the happiest time in my life doing it.
What’s the difference between movie and stage acting?
Movie acting is behavior and reaction. Stage acting is depicting something to someone who’s 200 yards away up in the balcony. They’re both called acting but it’s very difficult to do the two because they are completely different arts.
You’ve won two supporting-actor Oscars. Do you still want to win the big one?
Yes, I would have liked to have gotten the big one but I don’t know if I ever will now. I’ll probably get it for “Driving Mister Daisy” when I’m 85 and I’ll say, “It’s about time, you bastards!”
You were knighted. Would your mum have been completely chuffed?
Yes. Also, I was knighted in my father’s name, which is Maurice Micklewhite, which is my name. Not Michael Caine.
