Caine makes it look easy

Actor has enjoyed performing wide range of roles

By ADAM DAWTREY

Caine shares south London roots with his 'Harry Brown' protag, top, but he measures his ability to disappear into the parts he plays, such as 'The Quiet American,' bottom.

No British movie star of the past 50 years is more iconic than Michael Caine, with his golden hair, glasses and Cockney accent. Yet for an actor with such a clearly defined public image, the range of characters he has played onscreen is remarkably wide.

From his breakthrough role, cast against type as a posh officer in "Zulu," to his latest tour de force as a geriatric vigilante in "Harry Brown," he has reinvented himself time and again in more than 100 films while always remaining unmistakably Michael Caine.

Now 76 and still going strong, Caine is proud to call himself an actor, not a star.

"When a movie star reads a script, he asks, 'How can I change this to suit me?' He'd say, 'Michael Caine wouldn't say this, Michael Caine wouldn't do that.' When you're a movie actor, you change yourself to suit the script," he explains.

"I started out 56 years ago in rep theater playing a different part every week," he continues. "So when I got into films, my one criteria was that each role should be different from the last one. After 'Alfie,' I got offered 30 womanizers, but I didn't do any of them."

Caine always had bigscreen charisma, but it took awhile for people to take notice of his acting skill.

"The art is to make it look easy, and when you do that, people think you're not doing anything," he says. "It's like the difference between Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. When Kelly danced, you'd think, I couldn't do that. When Astaire danced, you'd think, I could do that. I'm in the Fred Astaire school."

That's why Caine never went back to the theater. "In the theater, you are there to reveal yourself to the man at the back of the balcony who's paid his money so he can see how well you are acting," he says with a hint of scorn. "In movies, you must conceal your acting from a camera that might be only three feet away."

According to Caine, there's no such thing as an easy part -- even when it's Harry Brown, the character whose background is closest to his own: Brown, like Caine, is an ex-soldier from the rough Elephant & Castle district of south London.

"I'm my own severest critic. My standard for what I do is that I look at the film and ask, 'Did the acting disappear, did I disappear?' With 'Harry Brown,' the answer was yes."

Asked to name other films where he felt that satisfaction, he lists "The Quiet American," "Educating Rita," "The Cider House Rules," "Little Voice," "Hannah and Her Sisters" and both versions of "Sleuth." He says the roles got better as he got older and he left the romantic leads behind.

"When you're young, you get the girl, you lose the girl, you get her back. There's not a lot of scope for performance there. You get more interesting parts eventually. I remember when the change came: A producer sent me a script and I said no, because the part was too small. He said, 'You're not supposed to be reading the lover, you're supposed to be reading the father!'

"I'm everybody's father now," he laughs. "I'm Austin Powers' father, Nicolas Cage's father, Nicole Kidman's father."

He loves being part of Christopher Nolan's rep company, having just finished a cameo in "Inception" to accompany his larger work in the Batman movies. "I think he's one of the greatest directors there is."

So what's next? "I wait for the offer I can't refuse. It's got nothing to do with money. What I'd love now is for another 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' to turn up. I've done a lot of dark films recently; I'd love to do another comedy."