Michael Caine has told Ryan Tubridy that he only feels old when he sees his stand-in on film sets.
The screen legend was Tubridy's guest on his RTÉ Radio 1 show on Friday morning where the two-time Oscar winner discussed his new book, Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life, and why he sees ageing as a privilege, not a problem - despite the presence of the stand-in.
"When you see the stand-in and this old man walks in you go, 'I wonder who he is?'" laughed Caine. 'He's standing in for you, Michael'. "And you go, 'Oh s***!'"
"It's very funny," Caine continued. "But I tell you what the big surprise was for me in old age was grandchildren. As I grew older I met grandparents and they were forever talking about their grandchildren and I thought, 'Oh those old bores - I wish they'd shut up about their blooming grandchildren and grandchildren all the time!'
"And then I got my own grandchildren and I'm exactly the same! I do nothing but talk about my grandchildren! Because I just love them so much.
"What happens to you as you grow older... I mean, you're getting towards the end of your life and your grandchildren come along and start it up all over again! And it's fabulous. And I'm having the best time - one of the best times - of my life with my grandchildren now."
When Tubridy put it to Caine that he "seemed to have got it right", he replied: "I got it right for me - you know, other people are not family people or whatever.
"One of the reasons I wrote the book - another reason - was I was watching television and they were interviewing young people about what they want to do with their lives. And they all were saying, 'I want to do this and I want to do that'. But several of them I noticed said, 'I want to be rich and famous'. But they never said how they were going to do it, you know?
"And one of the reasons I wanted to write the book as well was to talk about that. When I became an actor I was a Cockney with a thick Cockney accent. I'd just come back from Korea [the Korean War] and I'd suffered from malaria so I was in terrible physical state. And I became an actor, not trying to become rich and famous, knowing that I would never be rich and famous.
"The reason I became an actor was to become the best actor that I could possibly be. Without any reference to anyone else, because there'll always be someone whatever you do better at it than you are, and worse at it than you are.
"And [what] I was trying to pass on to these people about 'rich and famous' is: you're not going to be rich and famous. And if you are very lucky, of course, you are. But don't start out to be it: start out to be the best at what you do that you can be."
Listen to the full interview here.
Caine was most recently on film screens in King of Thieves.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
