The icon Michael Caine calls “the best movie actor I've ever come ...

Mon 25 December 2023 17:15, UK

He may have recently confirmed his retirement from acting after deciding that 90 years old was a suitable age to call it a day, but Michael Caine almost stepped away from the silver screen decades ago. That was until the star he described as “the best movie actor I’ve ever come across” changed his mind.

After showing up to gnaw on the scenery in Steven Seagal’s directorial debut On Deadly Ground in 1994, Caine embarked on a two-year sabbatical from acting that he never had any intention of ending. The icon was happy to focus his energies elsewhere until he ended up befriending Jack Nicholson.

In an interview with Academy of Achievement, the two-time Academy Award winner revealed that his fellow thespian was the one to bring him back: “Jack was the one. When I retired and went to Miami, I wasn’t going to do another movie,” he said. “It was Jack – who I met there, he was living there at that time – we became friends. He said, ‘I’ve got a script called Blood and Wine, and there’s a good part in it for you.'”

Despite Caine reiterating that he was out of the game, Nicholson persisted: “I said, ‘I’m retired Jack.’ He said, ‘Read it, read it.’ So I read it, and it was great,” he continued. “He was the one who brought me back to working because I hadn’t worked for two years, and I was very happy in Miami with my restaurant and everything.”

Thanks to some cajoling, then, Caine returned and admitted, “That’s what started this whole thing again.”

The two silver screen titans played partners in the crime thriller directed by Bob Rafelson, which saw Nicholson’s wayward husband orchestrating a heist with Caine’s safecracker so that he can secure the necessary funds to run away with his mistress, who was played by a rising star named Jennifer Lopez.

Blood and Wine tanked thunderously at the box office but received decent enough notices from critics, with its clear and obvious lasting legacy being the reignition of Caine’s acting spark. As well as describing Nicholson as one of his great friends, the regular Christopher Nolan collaborator also called him “one of the best actors in the world.”

In fact, he went so far as to label the three-time Oscar winner as “the best movie actor I’ve ever come across.” That’s high praise indeed from somebody of Caine’s standing, but the fact he made a point of referring specifically to cinema does give off the impression that he holds Humphrey Bogart in higher esteem. After all, he was named as Caine’s all time favourite actor, and unlike Nicholson, he spent years treading the boards on Broadway.