Beloved actor Sir Michael Caine has announced his retirement at age 90 after a long and fruitful career that spanned several decades with two Oscar wins.
The screen legend made his retirement known during an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today show on Saturday.
“I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I am now,” Caine, an infantry combat veteran from the Korean War where he served with the British Army 1st Fusiliers, said.
The actor previously told The Telegraph that he was now “sort of.”
“I am bloody 90 now, and I can’t walk properly and all that,” he said. “I sort of am retired now.”
Caine’s final turn on the screen is Oliver Parker’s The Great Escaper, which tells the story of WWII veteran Bernard Jordan breaking out of a retirement home to attend 70th anniversary commemoration of D-Day in 2014.
Sir Michael Caine attends “The Great Escaper” World Premiere at BFI Southbank on September 20, 2023 in London, England. (Mike Marsland/WireImage)
“I was so happy to do it,” Caine said. “I just loved the character of Bernie. I thought he was incredible, and it’s so beautifully written. With Covid and all that, I hadn’t done a picture for three years, and I thought I was finished. And I suddenly did it — and had such a wonderful time.”
When announcing his retirement, London-born Cain said he has enough incredible reviews at age 90.
“I’ve figured, I’ve had a picture where I’ve played the lead and it’s got incredible reviews,” Caine said. “The only parts I’m likely to get now are old men, 90-year-old men, maybe 85. And I thought, ‘Well, I might as well leave with all this — I’ve got wonderful reviews. What have I got to do to beat this?’”
“You don’t have leading men at 90, you’re going to have young handsome boys and girls,” he added.
File/Michael Caine, British actor, wearing a British Army uniform in a publicity portrait issued for the film, ‘Zulu’, South Africa, 1964. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
“With me, it’s not quite as diminishing as you think,” he explained. “I remember when I was young talking to old men of 90 and they weren’t a little bit like me. They were little tiny old men with humped shoulders…And I thought, I’m not like that and it’s changed,” he concluded.
Caine won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for his turns in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Cider House Rules (2002). His career launched in the 1960s with classics like Zulu and The Italian Job.
In recent years, Caine has resisted the industry’s push toward wokeness and political correctness. Just earlier, this year, he mocked the U.K. government’s push to label his class film, Zulu, an “extremist” work.
“That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard,” he said. “Even if the past is uncomfortable, and perhaps especially when the past is uncomfortable, it needs to be examined and unpacked rather than hidden away. Of course race is a central theme in the film.”
File/Michael Caine, Roger Moore and Sean Connery back stage at the 1989 Oscars March 29, 1989 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California (Paul Harris/Getty Images)
“Whenever that past is remembered it should always be a celebration of our ongoing fight, and victory, against division. That is worth thinking about, as that is the present-day context of the film Zulu,” he added.
Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.