After a career stretching some 70 years and over 160 films, Michael Caine has decided it is time to retire. Caine is 90 years old.
Caine made the announcement doing press for his latest — and now final — role, in the drama The Great Escaper, which was just released in the U.K. by Warner Bros. Caine plays Bernard Jordan, a real-life figure who in 2014 left a care home in order to attend the 70th anniversary of D-Day at the beaches in Normandy with fellow World War II veterans.
Here is the film’s trailer. Caine stars in the film with Glenda Jackson, who passed away last June, a few months after she completed work on The Great Escaper.
READ MORE: Actors Who Returned to Iconic Roles Decades Later
In an interview with BBC Radio, Caine said “I keep saying I’m going to retire … Well, I am now.” Caine has threatened to retire for years, but has continued to appear frequently in films until recently — including a role in every single Christoper Nolan movie between Batman Begins and Tenet. Caine also said that “funny enough, I’d retired when I was sent the [Great Escaper] script, and I turned it down three times, but I kept falling in love with him every time I read it, and so I did it.”
Over the course of his career, Caine won two Academy Awards (both for Best Supporting Actor — for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules) and a BAFTA (for the 1983 film Educating Rita). His other most notable films include the original versions of Get Carter, The Italian Job, and Alfie, the film version of Sleuth, plus Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, Frank Oz’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Muppets Christmas Carol, where he played a human Scrooge to a cast of puppets, and gave one of his most beloved performances.
You can listen to Caine’s BBC interview here.
10 Actors Who Were The Second Choice For Iconic Movie Roles