At the LA press day for Is Anybody There? Caine said he absolutely loved starring in this film directed by John Crowley (Intermission) from a script by Peter Harness. "I fell in love with the script when David Hayman, he brought the script to me, He’s the guy who produces Harry Potter. I mean, it’s not a big movie like that. So he brought this, he wanted to do it, and he gave it to me. I was reading it and I got halfway through, and I rang him and I said, 'I’ll do it.' He said, 'Did you like it?' I said, 'I haven’t finished it yet.' He said, 'Well why are you calling me before you finished it?' I said, 'Because I’m crying and I wanted something to do.'"
Caine added, "It had made me cry halfway through and I just went, 'No script had ever done that to me before.' I don’t cry easily, believe me, honestly. And I just thought it was a wonderful thing to do. And also, it stretches me. When you’ve been an actor as long as I have, you’re trying to get better and be better and better. The only reason to go to work really is to try and prove to yourself that you’re better than you were the last time. So that’s what it was about."
The film hinges on the relationship between Caine's character and that of the young boy, and Caine knew during the casting process that they had to get the right actor for that pivotal role or else they'd be sunk. "I didn’t have a say who had to play the little boy, but I did say to David, if the little boy is no good, we’re in trouble," explained Caine. "And then he brought Bill in and Bill was fabulous. Because he wasn’t from a stage school, he hadn’t done any professional acting before, I think he did one little thing. But he was from an amateur dramatic society, and most important of all, he didn’t have a stage mom. He had a very ordinary, when I say ordinary, very nice, very sweet woman, which is his mother. She wasn’t peddling her thwarted ambitions through him or anything, and so he was just a natural, a very natural little boy. I thought he was wonderful."
Asked what it meant for him to work with someone so young who's so talented, Caine replied, "Well, for me, it was first of all, I don’t like working with bad actors. I know some actors, stars, who like to work with bad actors so they look good. I like to work with the best possible actors because that pushes me on. And Bill, I never got the sense that Bill was a little child actor working. I just looked at Bill as someone who was just the same as me, and we were just friends, you know? We’re very good friends. And one reporter said to me, he said, 'Did you give him any advice?' I said, 'No, he didn’t need any.' He never looked like he needed any help. He was just wonderful, I thought."
Playing a retired magician meant that Caine had to learn a few magic tricks, something he didn't have to do in the last film he starred in which had magicians as central characters: The Prestige. "I played the guy who made the tricks, it was Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale were the magicians. No, but in this, the first thing I saw that I’d got right was before we ever started shooting the movie, I decided to part my hair in the middle. And then I had to meet the real magician to learn the tricks, a technical advisor. He came in and his hair was parted in the middle," recalled Caine, laughing. "I thought, 'I haven’t even started the movie and I got something right.' And I said to another magician who I met later, I told him that story. He had his hair parted in the middle and he said a lot of magicians have their hair parted in the middle. And I said, 'Why is that?' He said, 'Houdini.' Houdini parted his hair and all the young magicians copied him."
As for the movie's overall message, Caine just hopes audience walk away having experienced a film that's moved them and is something they haven't seen before when it comes to the relationships between children and adults and youngsters and the aging. "It goes both ways, you see how an older person can help someone young and bring them around, and you see how a younger person should treat an older person. So I think that understanding between the two ages is very important in this picture."
Is There Another Batman Movie in Michael Caine's Future?
Caine is signed on to do another Batman film if there is one, but right now director Christopher Nolan is busy at work on another project. "Christopher is doing a picture called Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, which I saw on the internet, so I imagine another Batman is quite a long way away.""If they do another one, I’ll probably be the butler," said Caine, laughing. "I hope I’m still alive. But Michael Goff, who played [the butler] before me, the last time he played [the butler], he was 84."
Caine's worked with Nolan three times now - Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Prestige - and he believes he will be working with him again on another Batman movie. "I would imagine so and that will be probably The Riddler."
Page 2: On Heath Ledger's Oscar and Christian Bale's Rant
