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MICHAEL CAINE on 'THE DARK KNIGHT'
Contributed by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor for RadioFree.com
March 31, 2009
While promoting his independent drama Is Anybody There?, Michael Caine graciously took a moment to talk about the prospects for a follow-up to The Dark Knight, his first meeting with Heath Ledger, and the unwanted attention Christian Bale received for his verbal outburst on the set of Terminator: Salvation.
Is Anybody There? opens in limited release in the US on April 17, and in the UK on May 1.
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The Interview
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MEDIA: You've talked about not currently having another movie in the works. Are you not expecting another installment of Batman?
MICHAEL: Well, [director Christopher Nolan] is doing a picture called Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, which I saw on the internet. So I imagine another Batman is quite a long way away.
But you had signed on to do three Batman films, yes?
Yes. If they do another one, I'll probably be the butler. [laughs] I hope I'm still alive! [laughs] But Michael Gough, who played [Alfred] before me...The last time he played [Alfred], he was 84.
Nolan took a break with another film between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight...
He did. I was in that, too: The Prestige. Christopher doesn't make pictures without me. [laughs]
...So he'll probably come around again to Batman after Inception, wouldn't you think?
I would imagine so. And that [villain] would be, probably, The Riddler.
What did Heath Ledger's Best Actor win at the Oscars mean to you? And do you think it was something that was important for his legacy?
Oh, I thought it was very important for his family as well. I was a big fan of his from the first time I met him. I had never met him before, and I met him on the set where he invades our party we're having, and I'm standing by the lift and I expect to greet people, and all his gang's behind him...But before that, I had met [him], obviously, on the set, and we were chatting. He had this make-up on and I was saying how fantastic I thought it was. And we were just chatting quietly. And then they said, "We're ready to shoot." And I had never seen the performance. We were just talking, you know? And then he came out of the elevator, and I was absolutely stunned by that, the way he did it, and the energy that went into it. And then when I saw the movie...There's an opening monologue and a closing monologue that he does, which I thought, "If anybody's going to better that and get an Academy Award above him, I will pay good money to see that." And nobody did beat him. I'm so pleased.
It will be a tough act to follow for anyone playing The Riddler...
Yeah. I thought it would be a tough act to follow for anybody who played The Joker after Jack Nicholson. You know what I'm saying? "He's the Joker!" We'll see. We'll see...
David Heyman, your producer for Is Anybody There?, also produces the Harry Potter films. Any chance you'll show up in that series?
Me? No, I think I'd have been there before if they wanted me. [laughs] No, I think that they're all set in their ways, that David and I have this little section--we do the little [films]...But David's mother is a very close friend of mine, and so I've known David since the day he was born. [laughs]
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To date, you've done three films with Christian Bale, who recently got attention for verbally lashing out on the set of Terminator: Salvation...
Yeah, that stunned me, that did, because he's not like that at all. I mean, I'm more like that than he is. [laughs] You're liable to get a volley off of me if you walk around during my takes! [laughs] But I would never imagine Christian doing that. It's completely out of character. I was stunned when I saw it on the news.
Regardless of who's doing the screaming, is that simply something that happens on a movie set, and people just usually get over it quickly and move on?
Oh, sure. I lost my temper on a movie years ago. I was doing a movie called The Last Valley, and James Clavell was the director. And I'm not a very good horseman, and I told them, and they put me on this horse that they knew was a killer, and it ran away with me for two miles. And I brought it back at a slow pace, and then I got off, and all the unit were laughing. And then I started--and I outdid Christian by about 30 minutes, and with more language than he knew, you know? So James Clavell broke the crew for an hour, and he said, "Let's have a cup of tea." And so we went and had a cup of tea. And James Clavell was captured in Hong Kong when he was 14 by the Japanese, and spent his first part of his life in Japanese prison camp. And he said to me, "The way I survived is I became Japanese in mentality. And so I knew where they were coming from in their treatment of us, and I knew where I should be and everything." He said, "And the one thing the Japanese never do is they never lose their temper. Because anger is an emotion that you should never show to strangers, because you expose too much of yourself." He said, "You must never expose yourself like that to strangers." And he gave me this long lecture on the Japanese and anger. And I have never lost my temper on a set since. I go home and scream at the kids. [laughs] But I have never lost my temper on a set since!
Did you reach out to Christian after his incident became public?
I haven't seen him since, no. When I meet him, I'm going to say, "Where the f*ck have you been?" [laughs]
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