The 1978 scene Michael Caine was too “petrified” to shoot in front of his co-stars: “Take them away”
We expect actors to be used to the spotlight, to find it easy to get up in front of people and perform; that’s their job, after all. But you’d be surprised just how many actors suffer from crippling stage fright.
I mean, even someone as iconic as Marilyn Monroe, someone so heavily photographed, often had to be coaxed out of her dressing room. Evidently, having to switch yourself off and tap into the mind of your character on demand isn’t easy, and it can be hard to put your own nerves to one side. You’re never going to be able to fully divorce your own self from the character you’re playing.
Michael Caine can vouch for these moments of insecurity, even though he has been one of the most celebrated British actors for decades. Despite earning his first Oscar nomination in 1966 for Alfie, which led him to work alongside some huge stars, like Laurence Olivier in 1972’s Sleuth, Caine still struggled with feeling a little intimidated at times. It’s only natural, though.
While many actors grew up under the spotlight, practically born into Hollywood, Caine had spent years chipping away at an acting career in England. Born into a working-class family just before the outbreak of World War II, he had a difficult upbringing, eventually doing his duties in the army before working at a theatre, which led to small bit parts in movies.
It seemed like Caine wasn’t getting anywhere, and he was even once told by a director that he’d never amount to anything, but by the mid-’60s, he was a star. And by the ‘70s, he was a Hollywood star. So, when it came to suddenly working with big names who’d found fame in the golden age of the film industry, he couldn’t help but feel a little “petrified”.
During an interview with the Sag-Aftra Foundation, Caine once revealed that during the filming of the awful disaster movie The Swarm, which featured an ensemble cast of big stars, he found himself too nervous to deliver a speech in a certain scene. “I had to give a lecture on entomology, which is not easy by the way, and I looked down, and there was Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, and Richard Witmark sitting there. I dried stone dead. I had to ask for them to be taken away,” he explained.
So, the scene was filmed with Caine being the only actor in the room, because it was just too “intimidating”. He continued, “They brought the camera in so we couldn’t see the backs of their heads, and I said, ‘You go and have a drink’, I said, ‘Go and have a cup of coffee’. So, I literally asked them to take them away, and I just did it to the empty seats.”
Sometimes, you have to get a bit creative to work around those mental roadblocks that prevent you from performing, and it’s reassuring to know that even stars as talented as Caine have experienced the nerves that you usually associate with inexperience.
But he was hardly the inexperienced star back in 1978; he was simply being met with faces that represented the cream of the crop, some of the most iconic figures of a period in cinema history that inspired him to become a star in the first place. Of course, he was going to be nervous.
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