“The old duffer”: The movies that made Michael Caine realise his leading man days were over
There was a time when Michael Caine, with his horn-rimmed glasses and Cockney accent, became an instant icon, utterly recognisable in gangster roles and otherwise across British classics like The Ipcress File, The Italian Job, Get Carter, and Sleuth, that chalked him out as the kind of leading man that many longed to be.
He was effortlessly cool and could also play the heartthrob when necessary, like when he starred as the titular character in Alfie, which earned him his first Oscar nomination back in 1966, playing a womanising East Ender who does all he can to avoid commitment. The movie follows his character through some harsh reality checks, like when he gets diagnosed with tuberculosis (although he just ends up seducing a nurse), as well as getting a woman pregnant, which leads to an abortion.
Elsewhere, he got to experience flirtations with much younger women in 1984’s Blame It On Rio, which sees him spend most of the runtime alongside bikini-clad or topless girls, his middle-aged character going through a marital crisis. Even though he was 51 at the time of filming, Caine still thought he had it, but soon enough, he started to realise that sexy leading roles were slipping away from him; no longer was he young enough to get away with them.
As the years passed, Caine had to acknowledge that he wasn’t going to get paired up with any young women who might try it on with him in a movie. Still, his tenure as a love interest lasted much longer than the average woman in Hollywood, who is usually relegated to rather unsexy roles as soon as she hits 35.
Talking to the Metro in 2009, Caine said, “I suppose I am missing the roles where I’m dishing out the sex”. It’s interesting because the actor surely had enough on his plate with roles in the likes of Children of Men and the various Christopher Nolan collaborations he signed onto, such as The Dark Knight and Inception, during this time. Yet Caine couldn’t help but miss the sexier roles from earlier in his career.
“I’ve just made, in my 70s, films with Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé Knowles, Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson, but I’m just the old duffer in the corner,” he admitted.
It seems like movies such as Blood and Wine, Austin Powers in Goldmember, The Cider House Rules, and The Prestige, which saw him appear alongside the aforementioned stars, were a harsh reminder of the fact that he was getting older and could no longer be cast as a romantic interest.
Getting old happens to us all, and Caine isn’t particularly bothered about that: “I never think about my own mortality. No, no, you must never do that. I always have so many plans for what I’m doing. I’ve behaved my entire life as if I’m immortal,” he said.
Still, that realisation of your place in Hollywood’s hierarchy, as the old man, a character that women aren’t going to be fawning over, must feel strange, nonetheless.
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