British actor Sir Michael Caine, who has won two Academy Awards, has announced that he would retire from acting after the release of his next film. Caine is 90 years old.
"I keep saying I'm going to retire. Well, I am now. I've figured, I've had a picture where I've played the lead and had incredible reviews ... What am I going to do that will beat this?" Caine said on the BBC's Today show.
According to Caine, the only parts he is liable to get now are the roles of a 90-year-old man. He said the primary actors in the movies are never above the age of 90; instead, they are always youthful and attractive.
'I'm Not Doing It'
After shooting The Great Escaper, Caine told Today he had declined an offer for a role. He said he was handed a screenplay and checked the script. Within a screenplay that was 99 pages long, he was given a part with 15 pages of conversation.
"I thought, 'I think that counts as a small part, I'm not doing it.' So I retired ... I thought, 'I'm ahead here, I may do a little part and get a bad review' ... so I thought, why not leave now? So I've left."
Caine is one of the most well-known and beloved British cinema actors of the last 60 years, having starred in over 130 films during that time. The Dark Knight, The Italian Job, Interstellar, Inception, The Prestige, and the Kingsman film series are just a few of the finest movies he has worked on.
In the past, he has alluded to The Great Escaper being his last feature before retiring.
But this is not the first time his movie has been touted as his last appearance; Harry Brown in 2009 and Best Sellers in 2021 were both labeled as such. A month ago, he said he was cast as Charles Darwin in a movie set to begin filming in the new year.
The Political Contrasts
Caine portrays real-life Royal Navy veteran Bernard Jordan in the new film The Great Escaper. Jordan made news in 2014 when he escaped from a care facility in Hove, East Sussex, and traveled to Normandy to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
Glenda Jackson, who finished shooting months before her death in June, and John Standing, who portrays a fictitious former RAF pilot he meets on the ship, also feature.
Caine and Jackson worked together for the first time in the 1975 film The Romantic Englishwoman, and although they got along, Caine claimed that he disagreed with Jackson's leftist ideals, as reported by the Guardian. Jackson served for almost 20 years as a Labour MP.
"She is a very leftwing politician. And she'd like me, but she wouldn't want to mix with me socially. Because I was obviously wealthy and everything, and not a spitting socialist," Caine explained.
Previously, he has discussed the political contrasts between the two, telling the Guardian, "I'm all for making money because I come from a very poor background."