The only roles Michael Caine couldn’t refuse: “Now I get the most beautiful part”
When Michael Caine first achieved fame in his 30s, he admitted he was like a kid in a candy store. The working-class East End boy, born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite to a fish market porter and a cleaner, was suddenly a film actor, and he quickly snapped up every role that came his way. It took him until he was an established star to realise he didn’t need to accept every part offered to him, and over the years, he developed a system that meant only certain parts passed muster. In fact, by the time he was in his ’60s, he resolved only to take roles he couldn’t refuse.
It’s hard to imagine now, given Caine spent most of the 2000s and ’10s as one of Hollywood’s most in-demand elder statesmen, but there was a time when he considered walking away from acting entirely. In the ’90s, he had aged out of leading roles and been reduced to pulling villain duties in the Steven Seagal movie On Deadly Ground. That wasn’t even the worst experience he had in the decade, though, claiming another one “almost finished me off.”
The trouble started when Caine was offered the chance to reprise his iconic Ipcress File role of Harry Palmer. The problem was that the format wasn’t a new silver screen adventure for the ’60s spy. Instead, Caine was being pitched two television movies shot back to back that would be aired in ’95 and ’96 on Showtime.
Ultimately, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight In Saint Petersburg was his “worst professional experience ever.” While shooting in Russia, the hotel Caine stayed in was a hub of Russian Mafia activity, and the lavatory facilities at the studio were so filthy that he admitted, “I went outside and relieved myself against the sound stage, which I noticed several other men had done before.” He couldn’t help thinking, “So, this is where my career has ended, I thought to myself: in the toilet. I’m done.”
Instead of jacking it all in and walking away, though, Caine decided to alter his whole approach to his roles. He devised three golden rules and resolved that he wouldn’t say “yes” if even one weren’t fulfilled. The simple criteria were as follows: “Good director, even if unknown,” “Good screenplay,” and “Good location, and can bring my family.”
You see, Caine realised that his working-class mentality had led to decisions that beget bad movies. In 2020, he told The Saturday Evening Post, “Early on, I took everything because I had no money and I came from a very poor family. Once I started making movies, I thought no one was going to offer me another one, so I always took the next one.” However, his career was in a new phase. He was no longer in a position where he needed to work to live – so he could afford to be choosier than ever before.
“I only do things that I absolutely cannot refuse,” Caine revealed before rattling off a list of roles in movies like The Quiet American – which notched him an Oscar nomination – Austin Powers in Goldmember, Miss Congeniality, and Batman Begins that more than fulfilled his three golden rules. “I could not refuse Phillip Noyce offering me The Quiet American. I couldn’t refuse being Austin Powers’ father or Sandy Bullock’s beauty mentor, and, of course, the butler in Batman.”
This change in strategy paid dividends for Caine, who starred in significantly more big movies in his last 20+ years as a star than he did in the ’90s. They weren’t always good films – we’re looking at you, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and The Last Witch Hunter – but at least they were chosen for the right reasons. “From then on, the mistakes I made in choosing roles were genuine mistakes,” Caine explained. “I thought it would be a good movie, and it wasn’t. That was that.”
In the end, Caine could even make his peace with being too old to play the swashbuckling hero or the romantic lead anymore. He smiled, “One thing now is I don’t get the girl; I get the part. When I used to get the girl, she’d be the most beautiful. Now I get the most beautiful part.”
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