Michael Caine’s most cockney movie, according to Michael Caine: “It was quite extraordinary”
Every movie featuring Michael Caine is at least a little bit cockney because he’s in it, but the legend pinpointed one picture as the pinnacle of those particular onscreen exploits.
He might have adopted an American accent for a few films, but because he’s Michael Caine, the celebrated legend and one of the most imitated actors of all time, even when he alters his accent for the sake of a role, he still can’t shake off that inherent cockney-ness.
The two-time Academy Award winner rose through the ranks at a time when the class divide was still viewed as a barrier to the top of the industry for people like the working-class South London native, but he broke through a fair few glass ceilings in that respect, on his way to attaining iconic status.
Caine is almost certainly cinema’s most definitive cockney, not to mention one of the United Kingdom’s greatest-ever actors and one of its most successful exports, becoming an inspiration to generations of aspiring thespians who grew up without the advantages that came with a silver spoon in the mouth.
Still, he was half a century deep in his career as a working actor before he finally found the Holy Grail that any self-respecting lad from Rotherhithe who became an internationally recognised movie star would be thrilled to stumble across: the single most cockney entry in his entire filmography.
Loosely inspired by William Shakespeare’s King Lear, director John Irvin’s crime drama, Shiner, saw Caine playing the title character, a low-level boxing promoter with ideas above his station and the police sniffing around his operation. Betting everything on a single fight involving his son, the outcome is less than desirable, to put it lightly.
Shot on location in London in early 2000, including several places the leading man knew very well from his youth, Caine had come full circle. “I’d never shot such a cockney picture, in which every person has a cockney accent,” he remarked. “It was quite extraordinary. I’ve known so many stories and characters like Shiner.”
It wasn’t only a chance to get closer to his roots than any production had afforded him before, though; it also doubled as a trip down memory lane. “I’ve been to those boxing places,” he recalled. “My dad used to take me to Manor Place Baths in Southwark, and in the film, there are boxers I know from that time who’d fought in Bethnal Green.”
Shiner is far from being the most memorable movie that Caine has ever made, and it’s even further away from being anywhere near the best, but it holds a special place in his heart as the most cockney film he’s ever made.
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