THE ACTORS
Q&A with Michael Caine and Dylan Moran		 Search all of phase9.tv






Movie Interview by Toby White

Dylan, I was wondering if your interpretation of Clive bore any resemblance to a younger Michael Caine?

DYLAN MORAN: No, no. The thought did pass through my mind but, apart from that, of the 14 million Michael Caine impersonators currently walking the planet, mine would rate very low, somewhere below the Senegalese version, so no I wasn’t trying to.

Sir Michael, I wonder if playing your character took you back to your early days in rep at all?

MICHAEL CAINE: It sure did and I based that character on every man I ever worked with in rep. I worked in rep for 9 years so I knew about 50 of those guys and they were all like O’Malley, all completely sad, complete losers and completely unaware of it. They always thought they were great and they just didn’t know but I thought they were wonderful and it was one of the reasons I wanted to play the part. And it was great for me; it was so nostalgic because I’ve not been in the theatre for 30 years.

Was it easy for the both of you to act bad Shakespeare?

DYLAN MORAN: I didn’t have any trouble finding a way in…

MICHAEL CAINE: Nor me. One of the reasons I did this was because to do a bad Richard III was such a laugh, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Following on from that, Sir Michael, can you name names of the definitive worst performance you’ve ever seen on stage and, secondly, can we tempt you back to the stage?

MICHAEL CAINE: I’ll take the second one first. No, I became a professional movie actor because it’s what I always wanted to be. I went into the theatre to learn how to act and it took me so long to learn I practically became a theatre actor. The worst performance I’ve ever seen on stage was one of these guys but when you’re as bad as these guys no one’s ever heard of you so there’s no one who is famous and successful who is this bad. It’s a contradiction in terms.

With respect, err, O’Toole in the Scottish play?

MICHAEL CAINE: Was he bad? I never saw that. I don’t remember ever seeing a dreadful performance…I saw a great drunken one, it was Wilfred Lawson and Trevor Howard and they were bombed in a Shakespeare matinee and it got very bad with the lines and that and someone shouted out, “You’re pissed!” and one of them said, “If you think I’m pissed wait until you see the Duke of Norfolk.” [Laughter]

Continued on page 2


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