Can you tell us what we should call you? We've never interviewed a Sir before!
Call me Michael. I'm very relaxed about all that. It's great to get the title but I don't think you have to shove it down everybody's throat every five minutes. I spend a lot of my time in America and I don't think it's fair to stick something on people that exists in your society but doesn't exist in theirs. They don't even know what it's all about and they get it wrong, because the correct way to address a Sir like me, is 'Sir Michael', but Americans think that's too familiar so they call you 'Sir Caine' and you say, 'I'm not even going to explain this. Call me Michael, will you?'
What do you think your parents would have made of it?
Oh blimey, that would have been extraordinary; they would have loved that.
How would you describe your character's role in the movie?
Well, Cutter, for me, he's meant to represent all of you, in the middle of all these lunatics. When you've got a clever director like ours, he uses a character like mine so that the minute he wants to make the audience jump or put you on edge, he does that to me. It's a similar role that I play in 'Batman' as the butler, I'm always asking, 'What's going on? Why are you dressing in a bat suit, sir?' and so I'm like the audience's representative on earth. I just made that up.
We hear you changed your voice for this role?
Well, he had a London accent but in those days you had all that coal fog and everyone had really gruff, low voices. Like in Liverpool they had all those chemical fumes so everybody talked through their nose like the Beatles. It's true! That's where they got that accent from… Otherwise you wouldn't talk like that, would you?
What was your favourite part of the movie to make – was it the 'Prestige' or the reveal as it were, or was it something else?
My favourite part was a little sequence where I'm with a lawyer and the 'big box' and there is a line that I say which goes something like, 'It's not magic, it was made by a wizard, it's real'. It's a very important moment in the movie for me, where I'm beginning to believe that it's not just tricks any more, that it's really happening. That was a great moment for me.
This film is all about the art of illusion and making an audience believe that what you are doing and saying is real, so would you say that a magician's job is quite similar to that of an actor or a director?
Well, one of the things in movies that I wish was similar to what a magician does is the idea that magicians never tell you how they do their tricks. I never look at all those things on DVDs where they show you how they did stuff because I don't want to know. We want there to be that magic. If I was in charge of the movies, I wouldn't let them show all those behind-the-scenes things, I hate them.
You seem to be one of the few actors that we can always hear every word you say when you are performing. Do you think there are too many actors around today who aren't enunciating and projecting what they are saying?
Yes. I've been on movies, not on this one, where I literally couldn't hear the other actor and they'd very often say, 'Well, this is the way I do things'. 'You mean you talk to people and they don't know what you're saying – is that it?' And they'd say, 'Well, no, I'll post-synch it in afterwards, louder'. So you end up looking at this guy and waiting for his lips to stop moving, and once he pauses you start to speak, but if his lips move again it can get very awkward. My wife is always telling me to keep my voice down in restaurants because I have a voice like a foghorn – but sound men like me very much because they can always hear me.
So is that all just down to training?
Well, what happens is you get the old guys like me who started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years, and on your first day the producer says to you, 'The people in the back have paid to hear what you are saying - project it'. It's not a case of just shouting, it's about having the ability to bring your voice up gradually without shouting at all.
Did you help Christian Bale with his Cockney accent?
Christian had a marvellous Cockney accent but I didn't have anything to do with that at all. It was a complete surprise on the first day when we did our first scene together because I'd already worked with Christian as 'Batman' and suddenly he's got this Cockney accent which threw me slightly, because it was a brilliant Cockney accent – I couldn't fault it at all.
Quite a few of your roles seem to be classic mentor types. Do you see yourself in that role within the acting community?
No. I don't see myself in the acting community at all. I don't mix with a lot of actors. That's not because I don't like them - I live in Surrey and there's not a lot of actors down there. Leatherhead is very sparse. I don't see myself as anything really, I just wander around and get on with my life. I have this whole image in the paper, which I quite like, and I think, 'Yeah, that's me', but then my wife says, 'No, that's not you at all'. 'But I'm an icon,' I say, 'It says so in the paper', and she'll say, 'OK, take the rubbish out then'. It's like that, my life. It's quite ordinary.
There's a line in the film where you say, 'Obsession is a young man's game'. Do you agree with that? And if not would you say you were still obsessed with acting?
Yes, obsession is a young man's game. My only excuse is that I never grew old. I see myself as 38, you just don't notice it! I'm in the luxurious position of only working when I really, really, really, really want to, because I don't like getting up early in the morning and doing pages of dialogue and all that stuff. I only work with offers I can't refuse… Christopher Nolan I can't refuse – I'm doing the next 'Batman' with him. Otherwise, I regard myself as retired. I have to become obsessed about what is offered to me because I don't go to work just for the sake of it, or to make money. You don't make any money when you're my age any way. The stars get it all… that's a lie actually, hee hee hee!
If you ever did retire properly, what would you do with all that free time?
Well, I'm a fanatic gardener. I'm writing two books: one a thriller and a second autobiography. I'm an amateur disc jockey - I make all my own records and I give them to my friends if they want them. I travel a lot, I love to be with my family, I have a big house in the country, I'm interested in all technologies - computers and everything and I have all the latest equipment - especially cinema equipment, so I have a great cinema in my home and I can get hold of all the DVDs, so I find it very difficult to find time to do all those things!
