Michael Caine Cars 2 Press Conference
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| Michael Caine with Finn McMissile |
You've played a lot of different roles in your career. Is this the first time you've played a car?
Michael Caine: "I have honestly never played a car before. I drove some cars in The Italian Job which was a thing about Mini cars but I’ve never been a car. This is a brand new experience for me and one of the reasons I did it because I’ve been in the business a long time and it’s very difficult to get a brand new experience."
What was it like working with Pixar?
Michael Caine: "Well, it’s surprisingly easy to do because everybody facilitates where they you want to be, and it’s very straight. It’s not like making a movie where you go through a studio. It’s a very on/off affair because you don’t see people for three or four months and then suddenly they bring you in and you’ll start doing it together again. And your co-star, even if it’s a lady, is a director because he’s doing the other part. It’s very simple. You read the lines. You don’t have to remember any of them, and it’s good fun."
This role seems tailored for you, being that you've played spies many times before. What was it like this time returning to the world of spies?
Michael Caine: "It’s one of the many reasons that I did it because it was so incredible. Suddenly, I get to be offered a spy and the car that I have is from the '60s. I’m a 1966 Aston Martin Pale Blue, which I think is very, very cool. I always played cool spies when I played them, so I supposed it’s absolutely marvelous. I love my car."
Finn McMissile is a great character name.
Michael Caine: "That’s an incredible name, isn’t it? Finn McMissile. It’s lovely. It makes me sound as though I’m dangerous. McMissile is dangerous."
This is your first animated movie. How did you find it different from making a live-action film? You said you didn’t have to learn any dialogue.
Michael Caine: "Also, you never meet the other actors. You don’t do scenes with the other actors. You might meet them coming out of the studio when they finish their session and you’re going in, but I never met anybody in the movie until I went to New York New York
What are some of your most memorable moments from working on this film and becoming Finn McMissile?
Michael Caine: "Well, the great thing, of course, was first is to be called Finn McMissile. I couldn’t resist it. And then they said I was a spy. And then they said you’re a 1966 Aston Martin Pale Blue and I thought, 'This is perfect for me.' But there was also something pre-that. It’s just recently in the past three years, I’ve got 3 grandchildren. And, of course, the reason I really wanted to do it was because I wanted them to see me. They know my voice. They gave me a car with my voice, a little model car, and I brought it back here and my grandchildren played with it and they know it’s me. So I’ve got this tremendous bond with my grandchildren through this film, because if you think about it, the films that I make little children can’t go see them. It was a wonderful opportunity for me. And the director is an incredible guy, by the way."
You’ve played so many characters that we’ve loved, what does it mean to you as an actor to have your voice immortalized in an animated film?
Michael Caine: "It was absolutely fabulous and where it really came home to me was when I went to the Toy Fair where they unveiled my big, proper Aston Martin. They also showed about three-quarters of the movie, and it was extraordinary. I mean, I rented the first Carswhen I was going to do this because I hadn’t seen it. I didn’t have any children to see it with. I rented Cars and I thought it was absolutely stunning the way they did things. When you watch these films if you're an adult, it’s a child’s film if you’re a child and it’s a grown-up film if you’re a grown-up because you just sit there in absolute amazement and say to yourself, 'How in the heck did they do this?' I did that with the first one that I saw and even more so with this second one."
"You know, the technology advances so fast. There’s probably two or three years between these movies, and the stuff they do in this one is extraordinary. What I liked – I don’t know whether I’m supposed to give away this bit – but in the end we all wind up with Her Majesty The Queen in my country."
You mentioned you wanted to be in this movie because it was something new for you. At this point in your career, how important is it to stay in touch with the audience? You’re in The Dark Night - a movie that young people like - and in this film you play an actual hero who has these adventures.
Michael Caine: "I’m a real hero. Wait until you see this guy. He really is a hero. You can see the stuff that he does. It is very important for me. I was walking along the street the other day and a dozen Japanese girls suddenly looked at me. They were teenagers, 14 or 15. And I suddenly realized they’d seen me as the butler in Batman, you know? Now I’m going to be outside some infant school with my grandchildren and everybody is going to hear me speak and, 'I know that voice.' I have a very original voice anyway because everybody has always impersonated me."
You were mentioning and praising John Lasseter for his investment in the film and his enjoyment of it and his crafting of the story. He is a notorious car aficionado. Are you one of those gentlemen who's a car fan or are they irrelevant to you by and large?
Michael Caine: "Cars, for me, are transport. I’ll tell you why. I grew up in the war in London London Los Angeles America
"But it was very funny, when I took my driving lesson everybody was very official. 'The inspector who’s going to judge your driving, he will only speak to you about technical things. You will not speak to him about anything else. There will be nothing personal. Just listen to what he says and answer what he asks, and everything must be kept absolutely professional.' I got in the car very nervous. I was going to take my test and he’s sitting there and he says to me, 'You’re going to have to be rubbish not to pass this test, the man who would be king,' so I was off and running."
"I’m a particularly terrible driver, but I passed that test. I’ve obviously had lots of cars, but I don’t drive them - especially in London London
As a seasoned actor working on an animated film, do you become concerned about developing your character’s back story arc or do you simply show up and say your lines?
Michael Caine: "Oh no, I’m a Method actor. I’m Stanislavski and all that stuff. There is a back story to my character. Finn McMissile, you know who he is. But for instance, I play Alfred the Butler America
During your time in the booth, was it hard to adjust to a different environment where you’re acting with your voice?
Michael Caine: "No, I’ve done a lot of radio in my life, you know? I’ve done radio plays for the BBC when I was young so I was absolutely used to that style of work, of working with the voice. I have a very distinctive voice so it’s always great for me because I open my mouth and everybody knows who it is."
Being in the booth is not strange for you, but so many times we talk to actors who are doing it for the first time and they talk about how weird it is. What is the weirdest environment you ever acted in?
Michael Caine: "The weirdest environment I ever acted in was in a movie where we were divers and it was a disaster. We were surrounded by sharks and there were three of us – Karl Malden and a young lady and me – and we were all sharing the mouthpiece for the oxygen. You think you’re going to die and you keep screaming for them to give you [oxygen] and everyone’s breathing and everything, and then you’re making a shot. I mean, we didn’t have a lot of dialogue underwater - just screaming and shouting. We were surrounded by sharks which were obviously put in later. But that was the weirdest I ever did. I was underwater sharing the mic with the leading lady whose name escapes me now and Karl Malden, the actor. Very weird!"
In terms of preparing for the character, did you do anything with your voice to enhance the character?
Michael Caine: "Yes, his accent is obviously English because he’s English but it’s what I call ‘working class posh’ because I figured he is extremely clever. You see that in the movie how clever he is, but I imagine him as being working class but he went to very posh schools because he was so clever. Therefore, you’ve got this accent, the voice that I use for him is in the English terms, upper middle class, but not aristocratic."
A lot of us are very exciting to see you returning to play Alfred in the next Dark Knightmovie. I know Mr. Nolan is very guarded with story, but could you at least tell us how filming has been going so far?
Michael Caine: "Oh, it’s fantastic. I started filming last week and I film next week, because as the butler, you know, I do a lot of filming at the beginning and everybody goes off and does all the adventures and they all come home shot to pieces and I patch them together when they all get back. But I mean Christopher Nolan, I think, is one of the greatest directors in the world and I’ve been lucky enough. This is my fifth movie with him. It’s such a pleasure to work with him and he is so clever. We’ve all signed the Official Secrets Act. I’m lucky to be able to tell you the title of the movie. I remember I did an interview and somebody said, 'What are you doing next?' and I said, 'I’m doing Batman.' And I saw Chris and he said, 'Why’d you tell them you were doing Batman?' 'Because I am.' 'You’re supposed to keep it a secret.' I said, 'I couldn’t keep that a secret.' Let me tell you, the plot is extraordinary, really extraordinary, and I know why he wants to keep it a secret. You really need not to know until you see the movie, which by the way, goes for Cars 2."
You mentioned you were a Method actor. How did you use that to become your character in this film?
Michael Caine: "You use your own experiences in life and you use what Stanislavski called ‘sense memory,' which is where you use things from your own life to make you laugh or cry. But you also do something which is very practical which Stanislavski said. He said, 'The rehearsal is the work. The performance is the relaxation.' So what that means is that by the time you get to the performance you’ve rehearsed it until you’re blue in the face. And with the line if someone said, 'Can you remember it?,' you couldn’t say any other line because you’ve said it a thousand times, a quarter of a million times, and you are so relaxed about it. That’s the secret of Stanislavski. The rehearsal is the work. And also, you don’t study other actors. You sit on the subway and study real people. I did a lot of stuff. I watch the news all the time and I’m always watching real people react to things. I remember when the young lady died going into space. It went up in space. I think it was 7 and it was the first young woman and the thing exploded and they cut to her parents who were watching. Now me included, I include myself in this, and every other actor would have gone, 'Oh my God!,' if you were playing the parents. You’d scream and burst into tears. Those two people stood there for five minutes absolutely still. They never moved. CNN has that newsroom footage. They just stood there looking at the sky and they did nothing. They didn’t cry, they didn’t shout, they didn’t scream, they didn’t laugh. But, of course, as a movie actor, you can’t stand there for five minutes and do nothing, so I would have added a bit of stuff."
What was it like working with John Lasseter and how he made this experience special for you?
Michael Caine: "The big thing is you go in there, you don’t know what you’re doing. I mean, when I started, I didn’t know what the car was. I didn’t even know the sort of thing what I looked like. But what he does, and he’s such an enthusiast, I know he’s an enthusiast for cars but he’s also an enthusiast for these animated films, and he is completely involved in it. S, anything you want to know, and he is full of absolutely every sort of information, and he works on just slight inflections. And he would say, 'The car hit a little bump there. Can you do that?' And every minute detail. He’s so clever at directing his actors. I just said he’s one of the best directors I’ve worked with and I’d never met him in real life. I mean, I have now. But for a long time I hadn’t."
"I’ll tell you a funny thing on these movies. You go there every three or four months or something and you do a couple of hours. You go and then you come back and in the end when they said to me, 'This is your last time. You’re done now, Michael.' I said, 'Oh, that’s great. How long have I been on this film?' He said, 'Nearly two years.' It’s something that goes in and out of your life for two years. You always have it waiting for you and then you’ve got this thing of watching the movie, which I did, or three-quarters of it."
Now that you’ve done this voice for Cars 2, has it whetted your appetite for more voice work? Would you like to do more and possibly more with Pixar?
Michael Caine: "Oh yeah, I would do it. I was just waiting for people to ask me. I did do one before this. It was called Gnomeo & Juliet. It was just the thing because it was my friend, Elton John, and David Furnish, his partner. We’re very close friends and he said, 'Would you do a voice on my picture?,' and so I said yes and it turned out to be a very successful picture. But I have never been asked to do anything and I’d like to do a funny voice. I haven’t done a funny voice yet. In Gnomeo & Juliet I was Juliet’s father, so it was a bit of an accent like myself because he was a Cockney gardener."
Why do you think that '60’s iconic spy still remains so potent with film audiences today?
Michael Caine: "I think it’s because they were real. The iconic spy, we had the thing with James Bond who was so obvious he couldn’t possibly be a spy because he drew so much attention to himself which is one way of being a spy. There are spies who are the consorts to the king or something like that. And then there’s the other type of spy, which was the ordinary guy. I did my own shopping in the supermarket buying mushrooms, but there was a reality to it because there was the spy going on with Russia
Earlier you mentioned A Man Who Would Be King and that recently came out on a new high definition disc. When was the last time you were surprised by stumbling across one of your own films on the TV or disc and said, “That’s a really good film?"
Michael Caine: "There were a couple of films — I’m trying to think of the titles now — that sort of came and went. There was one I did in New York
Obviously you’ve met the Queen, how do you think the Queen would react to her portrayal in Cars 2?
Michael Caine: "I think she’d react very well. She’s a good friend, The Queen. I’ve met her a couple times and I sat next to her at a dinner once and she suddenly turned to me and she said, 'Do you know any jokes?' 'Yeah, but not many I can tell you, Your Majesty.' 'I’ll tell you one while you think of the joke you can tell me.” I can not remember the joke she told me, but it was very funny. The Queen has an incredible sense of humor. I mean, you always see her being serious because she’s supposed to, but she has a tremendous sense of fun."
Sources : Michael Caine Discusses 'Cars 2'
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