The cigarette that taught Michael Caine a vital lesson in acting: “I never smoked in movies again”
There wasn’t much Michael Caine didn’t know about acting when he seemingly called time on his career a few years back. Into his tenth decade on the planet, it seemed appropriate that he might hang up his acting boots. But the back of a postage stamp still seemed like an unending canvas for the lessons Caine needed to learn as he posted his resignation letter to the wider world.
Having found fame in the 1960s, Caine has continuously worked ever since. Albeit not always in movies as great as The Italian Job (the less said about Jaws 3 the better), Caine has rarely found himself out of work for long and that is because, away from the charisma and the sharp wit, Caine is a damn fine actor.
Over the years, he has starred in dozens of movies that have cemented his position as one of the most beloved actors of his generation and many others’ generations. In fact, few have had as enjoyable a time in the spotlight as Caine. However, like many working-class kids from London, for a while, the idea of going to Hollywood felt very far away.
However, it was the lessons he learned from icons such as Richard Burton, Stanley Baker and Lawrence Olivier that would set him on his path to greatness. “Richard Burton and Stanley Baker. They were both role models for me,” the star once explained in candid honesty to Gyles Brandreth. “In my day, everyone thought you had to be posh to be an actor,” he explained of Baker, a rather brutish man who seemed to encapsulate everything Caine desired. “If you were working class, there weren’t British actors you could identify with. The British stars were all a bit fey. Stanley broke the mould. He was the first tough British actor who could compete with American actors for butchness.”
But, over the years, countless other acts have taught him vital lessons. One such lesson came from John Wayne, who advised Caine never to wear suede shoes. Caine recalled: “John Wayne said, ‘Never wear suede shoes,’ pointing at my shoes. I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Cause you’re gonna be famous, and you’re gonna be in the toilet taking a piss, and the guy next door to you is going to turn and recognise you and piss all over your shoes, kid.’ I gave all my suede shoes away to people who were unknown.”
Caine has dished out a few seminars too, teaching Aubrey Plaza a classic technique: “Michael Caine taught me that when you’re in a closeup in a movie, look at the camera with only one of your eyes and then the other eye is left ‘for the audience.’”
But there was one lesson Caine will never forget, and it came via a cigarette. In one particular Alfie scene, Caine was asked to smoke through a long shot: “There I was having done a long shot of a scene smoking a cigarette all the way through, and everything was fine until Lewis said, ‘OK, we are coming for the close up.’ I still hadn’t spotted the difficulty until shooting was underway, when the continuity girl called for the shot to be cut because my hand movements with the cigarette did not match those in the long – which of course was absolutely essential if the editor was going to be able to cut between the two shots.”
The issue presented itself as a long run of retakes: “We did the shot over and over as I took a puff on the wrong line and then blew the smoke out on another wrong line. It became a nightmare and eventually took 15 takes to get the shot – a rarity on Alfie, where the majority of the shots in the film were take one, not because we were particularly brilliant, but because we had very little money, thus very little time. Needless to say, I never smoked in movies again.”
So yes, by the end of his career, Michael Caine was about as taught as one might be. Taught by Burton, Baker and Olivier. Schooled by John Wayne and even given the chance to do a little schooling of his own. But one lesson needed to be burned into his brain by a cigarette.
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