Movie legend Michael Caine chats with Earl Dittman about his latest movie, Is Anybody There? (rolling out this month across North America), and opens up about his long-time friendship with Sean Connery, his opinion of Christian Bale’s notorious on-set outburst, and his secret exercise regimen—all after the jump.

Few actors really deserve to be called legends. Sir Michael Caine is one. Even better still, the 76-year-old Oscar-winning British actor (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in 1933, and knighted “Sir” by the Her Royal Highness in 2000) is easily the most genuinely friendly, down-to-earth and affable movie star you’ll ever meet. In his latest film (his 101st), Is Anybody There?,  Caine—who took his professional last name from The Caine Mutiny—portrays an aging magician who befriends a young boy (Bill Milner) after being dumped at a retirement home run by the kid’s family. It’s a profound and emotion-packed performance that’s already creating buzz among Oscar watchers and industry insiders.

“I hope people like it, because I really loved doing the movie—it means a lot to me,” admits Caine. “I hope people will take away a moving experience about life that they didn’t quite have before—about the relationships between children and adults and youngsters and the aging. I think the understanding between the young and the old is very important in this picture.”

A successful film actor for over four decades—“I was five years old when I saw Lone Ranger,” he recalls, “and I wanted to be a movie actor from that time on.”—Caine has garnered a whole new generation of fans for his role as Alfred, the butler in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. “I’m really pretty famous these days, but I’m still the butler,” he says with laugh.

You seem like someone who doesn’t have the word “retire” in your vocabulary. How do you do it?
“I just enjoy what I do. You have to remember, when I started out I was an amateur actor—‘amateur’ meaning to love. I like what I do and I enjoy the process of filmmaking provided, and this is the situation that I’m in, that I have complete and utter choice of where, what, why, when, how and with whom. That’s what happens to me now. This is my hundred and first film. I don’t work for a living. I just work in order to improve myself as an actor, which is what I’ve always done.”

You’ve done three films with Christian Bale (The Prestige, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight). Before we go any further, I have to ask what did you think about all the media coverage that went on after a recording of the Christian’s temper tantrum on the set of Terminator: Salvation was released to the press?
“Well, I was surprised that Christian did it, because he doesn’t have a temper. He’s a very quiet man. 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. But I would never imagine Christian doing that. It’s completely out of character. I was stunned when I saw it on the news. I don’t even remember Christian swearing in conversation, so it was a big surprise to me. The fact that he did it is not a surprise to me. If I had been him I would’ve done it, and I would’ve done it longer and better than he did.”
 
Was his outburst business as usual on a movie set? Is it something that happens and everyone gets over it later?
“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. I’m not a very good horseman and I told him, and they put me on this horse that they knew was a killer, and it ran away with me for two miles. I brought it back at a slow pace and then I got off, and all the units were laughing, and then I started. I outdid Christian by about 30 minutes and with more language than he knew. [Laughs] 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. James Clavell was captured in Hong Kong, when he was 14, by the Japanese and spent the first part of his life in a Japanese prison camp. And he said to me, ‘The way I survived—I became Japanese in mentality, and so I knew where they were coming from and 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]
 
Did you reach out to Christian?
“Well, I haven’t seen him since, so no. When I meet him again, I’m going to say, ‘Where the fuck have you been?’”

Clarence, your character in Is Anybody There? is a retired magician. Did you learn any magic tricks while doing The Prestige?
“No, because I didn’t play a magician in The Prestige—I played the guy who made the tricks. Hugh [Jackman] and Christian were the magicians. But in this, the first thing I saw that I’d got right was before we ever started shooting the movie—I decided to part my hair in the middle. And then I had to meet the real magician to learn the tricks—a technical advisor—and he came in, and his hair was parted in the middle.  I thought, ‘I haven’t even started the movie and I got something right.’ I told another magician that story, who I met later, and he said a lot of magicians have their hair parted in the middle. And I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘Houdini.’ Houdini parted his hair, and all the young magicians copied him.”
 
How difficult was it for you to learn some magic tricks to pull off some slight-of-hand for the film?
“Quite difficult, especially when you’re my age, and I’ve got fingers that don’t work quite. Billy [Milner] got that one quicker than I did. But it’s quite difficult to do. But the other things, of course, are tricks and machinery and gadgets and things. They’re not so bad.”

Were you challenged working with a younger actor like Bill Milner? Did he give you a run for your money?
“Oh, boy did he, because Bill is a very wonderful, natural actor. He’s never had theatrical training, and so he didn’t have to get rid of all those tricks for when you act in front of a camera like a stage actor. I was a stage actor for years.”

Did Billy give you any advice?
“Oh, yeah. He’d give me advice all the time. [Laughs] No. He didn’t give me advice, but we were very lucky really because without a great little boy of course the picture was in the toilet.”

What excited you about playing the character of Clarence, the angry senior citizen in Is Anybody There?
“The depth and range of it. You go through every emotion and so does the audience. If we do it right we should make you roll with laughter at one point and cry your eyes out at the next. That, to me, is the epitome of an actor’s job, to get the most extreme emotions out of you with the most reality. I love the relationship with the boy. It’s sort of like a hill. I lead him up a hill into his childhood, and he leads me down a hill to my death.”

Clarence has a line in Is Anybody There? which goes, “There are so many things that I’d like to say and do before the curtain comes down.” So what’s on your bucket list?
“Unlike him, I’ve had very big success. So I was allowed to say and do everything. I don’t have any regrets because I’m very optimistic and I live each day as though it’s the last. So I don’t have any feelings that he would’ve had about life.”

Of all the many people you’ve worked with, actor wise, who is it that you’ve bonded with the most and stayed in touch with the most?
“Sean Connery (in 1975’s The Man Who Would Be King). That’s a bit of a cheat really, because Sean and I were friends anyway before we made the picture. Actors, movie actors, don’t see each other again. I’ve worked with Roger Moore, too, and he’s another one that I’m close to. But even those, I live in England. One lives in Switzerland and the other one lives in the Bahamas. So I never see them. You never see each other. My circle of friends are not actors at all. None of them are actors really, because actors are not available. They’re always off somewhere. One of my friends was my tailor, one of my best friends, who died of Alzheimer’s—Dougie Hayward. Another close friend is Leslie Brickusse, who’s a composer. He’s always where he wants to be and he lives near me in England, or the photographer Terry O’Neal or a guy called Johnny Gold, who had the big discoteque Tramps in the ’60s where I used to go and drink vodka. So you bond with actors and get on with them very well and then you don’t see them. If you’re a leading actor you don’t work with another actor. You work with a lady, if you see what I’m saying.”

How did you bond with the original James Bond, so to speak? Did you two meet each other outside of work?
“Oh, yeah.”

What was the connection and what made you such good friends?
“Well, we always were. Sean Connery, when I met him, was a chorus boy in South Pacific. What had happened was is that they came to London to do South Pacific, and they had to have all these American sailors, big tough sailors singing ‘There’s Nothing Like a Dame.’ They did auditions with London chorus boys, who were not really very butch, and they had all these little, skinny guys, and it looked ridiculous when they sang ‘There’s Nothing Like A Dame.’ So the producer went around to all the gymnasiums, and Sean was like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was Mr. Edinburgh. He was going for Mr. Great Britain and Mr. World. He was a big weightlifter, a great big guy. Then, the opening night of South Pacific was a Thursday, and I went to a party on the Saturday night, and I met him there. He was 24 and I was 22. So that’s where we met.”

What are some of the films that have been most memorable for you in your long and distinguished career?
“Well, films are memorable for different reasons. Zulu, because it was my first speaking part where I had more than ten lines. The Ipcress File was the first time I had my name above the title. Alfie opened a market for me in America. It goes right through to films like Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels, where I made a very funny film, a very happy film and for that location they gave me a villa in the south of France for three months. I’m still waiting for another movie like that. I’ve never gotten it. But the films that I loved making, the original Sleuth. Well, I loved making the second Sleuth but we got slaughtered for that, but I still loved making it. The Quiet American. Little Voice. Hannah and Her Sisters. I loved working with Woody (Allen), and I love New York, and so I was very happy with that.”

In looking back at your career, what are some of the things that you look at and realize that you managed to accomplish in terms of the craft, accents or whatever else?
“I managed to get to a stage where I imagine, and I’ve never taken drugs, but I imagine if you take a drug of your choice you get some ecstatic feeling. I have a situation now in takes where I know I’ve absolutely nailed it. I know. I think that’s why I’m still doing it, because that’s the drug that I need. The director says ‘Cut’ and nobody even says, ‘Lets try it.’ They say, ‘We’re over here,’ and they just walk away because you can’t do it again. That’s for me what I’ve learned to do.”

How did you avoid drugs all your life and after all these years in this business?
“Well, they weren’t there when I was young. It was alcohol. We were all drunks. All the British actors of my time were all bombed out of their minds. I remember seeing a Shakespeare play, and I forget what it was, with Trevor Howard and a very old British actor who’s a very famous drunk, called Wilford Lawson. He was always pissed. They came on, and I saw a matinee, and they were both very drunk in this Shakespeare play. A member of the audience shouted out, ‘You’re drunk.’ And Trevor Howard said, ‘If you think we’re drunk wait until you see The Duke of Buckingham.’” [Laughs]

But you’ve never been drunk and done a performance?
“Oh, no. I never drink at work at all. Nothing, no. I’m very professional. I mean, I can drink. Well, I used to drink vodka like the lads and disco and piss and all of that stuff, but I mean I’m very, very family oriented. I’m a big cook and a good connoisseur, and I only drink very good red wines now.”

Are you expecting there to be a third Batman picture?
“Well, Christopher [Nolan] is doing a picture called Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, so I imagine another Batman is quite a long way away.”

Aren’t you signed for three Batman pictures?
“Oh yeah, if they do another one, I’ll probably be the butler—again. I hope I’m still alive. But Michael Gough, who played the butler in Batman before me, the last time he played in Batman, he was 84, so I should be okay.”
 
Didn’t (director) Christopher Nolan make another film in between the first and second Batman movies?
“He did. I was in that, too—The Prestige. Christopher doesn’t make pictures without me.” [Laughs]
 
Do you think he’ll come around to doing a third one?
“I would imagine so, and that will be probably The Riddler.”

Do you feel a certain kind of fun when you do movies like The Prestige or Batman Begins and The Dark Knight?
“Oh, yeah, it’s wonderful. I love doing those. I love working with Christopher Nolan. I think he’s a new David Lean, Christopher is. I think he’s extraordinary. I’ve seen everything he’s ever done. I’ve worked with him on three pictures, and I just think he’s the most extraordinary director and has an incredible imagination. Remember, he writes these scripts.”

What still juices you about the parts you do?
“The degree of difficulty and the people that I’m working with. For instance, I like to work with young directors, and I had seen the two films that John (Crowley) made. I made another picture, Harry Brown, and I saw the one picture that the director Daniel Barber made. I think that it was called The Indian Woman. He got nominated for an Oscar for it and this is his first feature. So I like to do that. I mean, even Christopher (Nolan) was a young director with only two small movies when we did Batman Begins.”

What keeps you looking so young and great?
“Well, I do a lot of exercise.”

Do you go to the gym?
“No, no. I’m a walker. I walk about five miles a day, and I’m a gardener. If you’re a gardener you don’t need a gym, I’ll tell you. You’re always carrying large sacks of manure all over the place.” [Laughs]