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“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.” – Sir Michael Caine

Sir Michael Caine’s ability seems indelibly entwined with his universal likeability as a person. For all the method and technique involved, he is proof that having the audience on board from the get-go is half the battle. He is an expert at mingling his own inherent charms with the character that he is playing to add humanity and humility to the wide-ranging roles in which he is cast.

One of the most quintessentially British actors ever to grace the silver screen, in part thanks to his iconic cockney accent, which has been mimicked by professionals and drunk uncles time and time again across the globe. Taking to the industry back in the 1950s, the burgeoning young star peddled minor TV roles for many years before his big break, Cy Endfield’s Zulu, would kickstart his supremacy at the pinnacle of Hollywood cinema.

Since this fateful role, Caine hasn’t ceased his climb up the industry ladder, boasting collaborations with such independent filmmakers as Woody Allen and Mike Hodges, as well as blockbuster directors like Christopher Nolan, Alfonso Cuarón and Matthew Vaughn. It is for this self-same diversity that Caine has attracted such adoration over the years, even once vying to play one of Britain’s most treasured roles.

Indeed, when Sean Connery gave up the James Bond role in the late 1960s, Caine was considered to become the new 007, having demonstrated his potential as an action star in 1969’s Italian Job. “I was always much more ordinary,” he explained in regards to why he never got the role, “Bond was a glamorous, imaginative creation. I’ve always played real people”.

This diversity, from superhero movies to comedies and even hard-hitting social commentaries, adds particular interest to the way in which he views his own back catalogue. Such became particularly clear back in 2010, when the star sat down with Charles McGrath of The New York Times to discuss the movies he is most proud of, giving an exclusive insight into his time on each film in the process.

The first on the list is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which is a movie conman caper with more charm and joie de vivre than just about any other comedy in history. It is a movie that relishes the ability to coax hilarity without punching down at anyone in a mingling joy of genres, with Caine starring in the flick alongside the likes of Steve Martin and Ian McDiarmid of Star Wars fame.

“I had such a good time filming it that when they first came to me I thought they were joking,” Caine recalls regarding his casting in the role. It is this playful, self-evident onset fun that bleeds gloriously onto the screen. Initially reluctant to take on the movie, when Caine eventually read the script, he called it a “riot” with Caine giving all the plaudits to Martin, stating: “He was nuts, and I was completely serious at all time. If I was trying to be funny it wouldn’t work, especially in movies”.

The wide-ranging diversity of Caine’s filmography is then proved by his second choice, The Man Who Would Be King. As soldiers who adventure into Kafiristsan, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, and Christopher Plummer brought director John Huston’s vision scintillatingly to life. Caine declared that the three actors were already friends long before the film, before declaring, “I had never met John Huston…But he was my favourite director”.

After accepting the role, Huston revealed to Caine that he would be playing a role he previously intended to cast Humphrey Bogart in before he died. “Bogart was my favourite actor,” Caine explains, and with glee, he recalled, “I was going play a part that Bogart was going to play and I was going to be directed by John Huston!”.

Alfie is the next movie on the list, perhaps Caine’s most iconic role outside of his various action flicks that have mesmerised audiences the world over. Telling the story of a womaniser in late-1960s London who begins to see the downfall of his lifestyle, Caine was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the film, losing out to Paul Scofield who claimed the trophy for A Man for All Seasons.

A film that, upon its release in 1966, transcended success and entered the cultural mainstay at large all over the world, with the exception of France. Thus, Caine asked a French friend why that was the case, and he received the humorous response, “No Frenchman could believe that an Englishman could seduce ten women”.

Rounding up his selection was the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters and the Joseph L. Mankiewicz whodunnit classic Sleuth. About the former, Caine didn’t recall much about the movie itself but humorously remembered acting alongside Mia Farrow while Allen was directing. “Woody at that time was Mia’s lover,” Caine begins, “We shot the movie in her apartment. We had a scene in bed and it was her bed, and we had an intimate scene, and Woody was directing it and I looked up as I was just going to kiss and over her shoulder, I could see her ex-husband André Previn looking at me”. As it turns out, he had just popped into the apartment to check in on the children he had with Farrow, in what sounds like the most hodgepodge Allen set in history.

Lastly, for Caine, Sleuth holds a special place in his heart as it gave him the opportunity to star alongside perhaps the most revered actor of all time, Laurence Olivier. “He gave me the greatest compliment I have ever had in my life,” Caine proudly remembers, “We did a scene, a very emotional scene. And at the end of it, he said, ‘You know Michael, I thought I had an assistant, now I know I have a partner”.

Take a look at the full list of Caine’s favourite movies from his own filmography below. Though, with the interview being conducted in 2010, perhaps he would include the likes of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth if he did the same thing today, with this trio of recent flicks demonstrating some of the finest work of Caine’s latter career.

Michael Caine’s five favourite Michael Caine movies:

• Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966)
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Frank Oz, 1988)
• Hannah and her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)
• The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
• Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972)

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