A misunderstanding caused widespread confusion on Saturday after an interview surfaced in which actor Michael Caine seemingly claimed he was retiring from acting.
During a Friday segment on BBC Radio 5’s “Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review,” Caine, 88, was asked about his role in the upcoming film, “Best Sellers,” in which he plays a curmudgeonly, alcoholic author.
“I’ve got this alcoholic part, and funnily enough, it has turned out to be what is my last part, really, because I haven’t worked for two years and I have a spine problem, which affects my legs so I can’t walk very well,” Caine said.
And I also wrote a book, a couple of books, which were published and were successful, so I’m now not an actor, I’m a writer, which is lovely because as an actor you have to get up … by six in the morning and go to the studio. [As] a writer, you can start writing without leaving the bed.
Simon Mayo then asked Caine, “So, this is, so you’re saying that this is your last picture?”
Caine replied, “Yeah, I think it would be, yeah. I don’t have any — they haven’t been in the office obviously for two years because nobody’s been making any movies I’d want to do, but also, you know, I’m 88. There’s not exactly scripts pouring out where the leading man is 88, you know?”
Following multiple news outlets reporting Caine’s alleged retirement, the actor tweeted the following: “I haven’t retired and not a lot of people know that.”
I haven’t retired and not a lot of people know that
— Michael Caine (@themichaelcaine) October 16, 2021
Caine officially confirmed his non-retirement in a statement to Variety: “Regarding retirement, I’ve spent over 50 years getting up at 6 a.m. to make movies, and I’m not getting rid of my alarm clock!”
Looking to Caine’s IMDb page, it appears as though the actor has at least three projects on the horizon, including “Medieval,” “The Great Escaper,” and “Now You See Me 3,” all of which are in various stages of production.
The Rotten Tomatoes description of “Best Sellers,” which was released in September, reads:
Lucy Standbridge (Aubrey Plaza) has inherited her father’s publishing house, and the ambitious would-be editor has nearly sunk it with failing titles. She discovers she is owed a book by Harris Shaw (Michael Caine), a reclusive, cantankerous, booze-addled author who originally put the company on the map decades earlier. In a last-ditch effort to save the company, Lucy and Harris release his new book and embark on a book tour from hell that changes them both in ways they didn’t expect.
The film currently holds a 51% RT score.
Caine has been in the acting business for decades. The 88-year-old’s career got rolling in the mid-1950s, and in recent years, he has frequently collaborated with mega-director Christopher Nolan on projects such as “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Inception,” “Interstellar,” and “Tenet.”
Caine has won two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor — one for “Hannah And Her Sisters” in 1986, and the other for “The Cider House Rules” in 1999.