"It was a bit dicey to do," says 85-year old screen legend Michael Caine as he recalls playing gay men in the films California Suite and Deathtrap.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the veteran London actor recalled how people declared that it might kill his career to play gay characters - "and what are the girls going to think of you?" he says, paraphrasing some of the thinking of the time.
"A couple of people said, `Do you really want to do it, Michael? People will think you’re gay.' I said, " 'No, they won’t. They know I’m an actor.' "
The actor had quite a few gay friends so he studied them and their movements and speech for his roles in the above-mentioned films. He recalled in particular a romantic scene with co-star Christopher Reeve in Deathtrap.
"Neither of us had ever kissed another man before, so we drank a couple of brandies. Then when it came time for the dialogue, we couldn’t remember it. So the kiss was a bit of a disaster."
Michael Caine's early days were indeed inauspicious, and he did not look like a screen idol. "I had a thick Cockney accent and I was a tall, skinny guy," the actor recalls, talking about his lead role in the spy thriller The Ipcress File, released in 1965.
"I wore glasses, and during the movie I tried to seduce a woman by cooking a meal for her in my kitchen. We got a note back from Hollywood saying, ‘Leading man looks gay — wears glasses, cooks and shops in groceries.’ "
He views himself now as one of a coterie of actors who were the first working-class people to become movie stars. "The reason for that was that people didn’t worship us, really. They just said, ‘Oh, here’s a man just like me, so we’re the same, you know. And I bet if I met him he’d talk to me and have a beer.’ "
Caine has appeared in more than 170 films, the most recent of which was King of Thieves, released late in 2018. Last autumn he was filming Medieval, a historical drama which is scheduled for cinemas later this year. The actor recently published his second memoir, Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life. He spoke to the Ryan Tubridy Radio Show on RTÉ Radio 1 on the occasion of the book's publication last year.
He will say yes to a movie role, if the location is somewhere he wants to visit. Likewise, the shoot must not be overly long, "and the money must be good. And of course, the part must be good."
The actor has no regrets about turning down any kind of movie offer, he had never made that kind of mistake. "I only made the ones in the opposite direction — what I didn’t say no to."
He recalled filming On Deadly Ground with the actor Steven Seagal. "It wasn’t one of my dream experiences, to put it nicely. We were in Alaska. He was quite pleasant, but I never saw much of him; he never came out of his motor-home very much. He was one of the top whatever it is — jiu-jitsu, whatever it is they do. I’d never argue with him. I didn’t want him to throw me over."
The actor, who has been married for 47 years, once smoked 80 French cigarettes - Gauloises - a day. In the old days, he drank alcohol "quite heavily for some time" but he never did any drugs by choice.
"I was at a party with Richard Harris and I said, "I’ve never smoked marijuana," and he said, "Well, smoke one." I smoked the marijuana and I must have been terribly tense, because I laughed for five hours.
"I couldn’t get a taxi home because I was standing at one o’clock in the morning on the pavement trying to wave a taxi - 'I’m not picking him up, he’s nuts or drunk. Also, I was told by my doctor not to do it.
He said, " `You’re an actor, you’ve got to remember lines, and marijuana is murder for the memory.' "
Watch RTÉ Entertainment's interview with Caine, Courtney and Winstone as King of Thieves is released while the director on the movie talks about King of Thieves here
