Michael Caine’s five favourite films that he starred in and his favourite director of all.
(Image: GETTY)
Sir , who turns 92 this Friday, featured in over 160 films across eight decades. Now retired, fans look back on the British actor’s incredible career with much fondness. But did you know the icon once revealed his five favourite films of the ones he starred in? And it turns out that one of these was directed by his favourite director to direct him. Caine made the reveals back in 2010 during an interview with Charles McGrath of The New York Times.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
This comedy classic directed by Frank Oz saw Caine and Steve Martin play competing con men attempting to get $50,000 out of Glenne Headly’s wealthy tourist in the French Riviera. Initially reluctant to be cast, Caine thought they were joking when he was asked. That was until he found the script a “riot” and said of Martin: “He was nuts, and I was completely serious at all times. If I was trying to be funny it wouldn’t work, especially in movies.”
(Image: GETTY)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Based on Rudyard Kipling’s novel of the same name, John Huston’s adventure film stars Caine and Sean Connery as two former British soldiers who leave late 19th century India for Kafiristan, where one believed to be a god and made their king. Caine shared: I had never met John Huston…But he was my favourite director.”
(Image: GETTY)
Alfie (1966)
Based on the play of the same name, Caine stars as a self-centred womaniser who breaks the fourth wall as he cheats on women and begins to question his behaviour and loneliness. Despite being a worldwide box-office success, Alfie didn’t do so well in France. When Caine asked a French friend why, they replied: “No Frenchman could believe that an Englishman could seduce ten women.”
(Image: GETTY)
Hannah and her Sisters (1986)
Woody Allen’s classic dramedy follows an extended family over two years beginning and ending with Thanksgiving. On acting opposite Mia Farrow, Caine recalled: “Woody at that time was Mia’s lover We shot the movie in her apartment. We had a scene in bed and it was her bed, and we had an intimate scene, and Woody was directing it and I looked up as I was just going to kiss and over her shoulder, I could see her ex-husband André Previn looking at me”. It turns out he’d just popped in to check on his children he’d had with Farrow.
(Image: GETTY)