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Michael Caine on Christian Bale: Caine knew of Bale before working with him in Batman Begins but the two had never met prior to that film. “See, Christian being Batman was a great big surprise for me because I'd seen him as this skinny little guy. When they said that he was going to play Batman I thought, 'Jeez, he's a bit on the small side for that.’ I thought that they might give him one of those suits. Then when I walked on the set the first day, the first scene that I did was with Christian. I stood with him and all of his own muscles. So the first thing it tells you about him is, when you see The Machinist, that he's dedicated to what he does. He's not fooling around here anymore. He's a wonderful actor, and now he's got this film that's got wonderful reviews in America called Harsh Times.”
And Speaking of The Dark Knight - Michael Caine’s Suggestion for the Next Batman Movie: “I was talking to the widow of the man who wrote Batman and she said, ‘He wrote a marvelous scene that you should do in your next movie, one of the episodes.’ I asked her what it was and she told me that he wrote a sequence where Batman was trying to get the bad guys and he wanted to use the butler dressed as Batman as a rouse, and then go back around behind him. So I said to Christopher…and I don't know whether he's going to use it because he won't tell you anything about the script, but I mentioned this to him because I thought that this was a great idea. I think that if he dresses me as Batman it could be one of the funniest sequences in the history of movies. Can you imagine what I would make out of that, trying to get into the Batman suit and then running around the woods while he's going around the other way to try and get the bad guys? See, you're already laughing. Those films are very serious and my job is to bring the humor of the sort of ordinary person being in that situation, which is what I am. I'm just waiting to get the script. Every time I ask him for it he says, 'I haven't finished it.' I know he's finished it otherwise [Warner Bros] wouldn't have given it the go ahead.”
Coming Soon – Another Version of Sleuth: “In Sleuth I'm playing an enormous part, but I'm not playing the same part and it's not the same script at all. I was having lunch last week with Kenny Branagh and a friend of his came by and saw him with me. The friend said, 'Oh, you two are remaking Sleuth.’ Kenny said, 'No we're not.' He said, 'I thought you were.' Kenny said, 'He and I are making a movie based on the plot line of Sleuth with the same title. That's all.' If you think a script from Harold Pinter is a little different, then you're right. It's very different.”
