Why Michael Caine is perfectly fine never working with Ridley Scott: “He doesn’t have to”
When an actor reaches the stature that Michael Caine has spent his entire career working towards, it’s hard to imagine any director turning you down for a project. With names like Christopher Nolan and Alfonso Cuarón on your resumé, any casting director worth their salt would be rushing to get you in the door. However, that was never enough for Caine, who resigned himself to the fact that he was never going to work with Ridley Scott.
Of course, since he announced his retirement in 2023, there’s a very low possibility that the English actor will ever return to the industry, let alone for a Ridley Scott project. The director recently released his follow-up to Gladiator, starring Paul Mescal, and has announced his intentions of continuing work on the franchise and building it into a fleshed-out movie series.
Considering that one of the primary reasons Caine retired was that he was no longer receiving offers for leading roles, it’s difficult to see the actor being cast as a major character in the vision Scott has for his franchise. Thankfully, the fact that Scott never cast Caine in his previous works has never been an issue for the Get Carter star, who will always be grateful to Scott for a completely different reason.
In his autobiography, What’s It All About?, Caine once expanded on the now-famous story about him falling in love with his wife Shakira. He thought he had seen “the most beautiful woman” in the world while watching an advertisement for Maxwell House coffee in 1971, and that sparked his search for her, which eventually resulted in their marriage. That commercial had been directed by Scott himself, whose output in advertising was prolific during his early years.
Caine wrote, “We talked as often as we could by phone from Mexico, where Shakira was working, to Malta, where I was. Anybody who has ever moaned about any telephone system should have tried phoning Mexico from Malta in 1972. If anything was a test of true love, this was it, and we passed it. The moment she finished working in Mexico, Shakira came and joined me in Malta, and we have remained together ever since.”
Adding, “The commercial that I saw her in for the first time was, she told me later, directed by a man named Ridley Scott, who is now a very successful director in Hollywood with hits like Alien and Thelma and Louise to his credit. Mr Scott has never given me a part in any of his movies, but then he doesn’t have to, as far as I am concerned. He has already done me the biggest favour possible, and I would just like to say thank you.”
While the commercial itself is a bit strange and borderline offensive, like many other ad spots from that period, Scott’s choice to feature Shakira was the origin point for Caine and her love story, for which he always acknowledges his debt to Scott. He might not have had the opportunity to collaborate with the director on a project, but Scott ended up positively affecting his life much more than a movie ever could.
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