Jason and Michael, what’s the coolest car either of you have ever driven, owned or aspired to drive?
I grew up in a non car period, Second World War - there weren’t a lot of cars about and I lived in a city with an incredible transport system with taxis, underground and buses, so I never knew a person who owned a car until I was 25 years old. The first car I ever bought was a Rolls Royce, but I couldn’t drive so I thought I’d learn to drive in this Rolls Royce, but the insurance company said “Oh no, no you’re not.”
So it was actually cheaper to hire a chauffeur, so I hired a chauffeur and didn’t try and learn to drive again until I moved to Los Angeles, and well, you have to drive in LA. And so I took a test in LA, and it was very weird, and the man said, “The guy who’ll be taking your lesson is sitting outside in the car, you will only speak to him and say good morning, there will be no normal conversation. You will take his instructions and listen to him, there will be no personal remarks whatsoever.” So I got in the car and the guy said, “I loved you in The Man Who Would be King.” He said “You’re going to have to be shit not to pass this test.” So I passed the test at 50 but I was a terrible driver, my mind was always somewhere else, so I drove for 20 years but at 70 I gave it up.
But my favourite car would be a Rolls Royce, because it’s the only car I’ve ever driven. I don’t even like them. I just thought that’s what I was supposed to have when I was young and very flash. My wife said to me, “The first time I ever met you, you turned up in a convertible Rolls Royce, in a white suit.” I said “I wanted to be noticed,” she said “Well, you got noticed.”
The first car I ever bought was a Rolls Royce, but I couldn’t drive so I thought it was actually cheaper to hire a chauffeur, so I didn’t try and learn to drive again until I moved to Los Angeles...
Remind me never to go after Michael with a story. My first car which I saved up for during a gap year after university was a Talbot Horizon. Jimmy Nesbitt, another British actor was going off on tour with Hamlet and so he gave me all his worldly possessions. At the time that was three bags, one of them I remember was only shoes, and I put them in my car and I went off to do a job and while I was gone, the council had cubed it. So Nesbitt came back saying “Where’s my stuff mate?” and I just gave him the cubed things.
The car I always wanted to drive was Kris Kristofferson’s Ferrari Daytona in The Star is Born. Barbara Streisand in that movie had one of the most terrifying perms in film history, but the car was very cool. The only car thing I remember, is a film I did with Jackie Chan years ago, The Tuxedo, where we had to do a chase something like 40 miles an hour and then they double the speed. So they were clearing the street and Jackie said, “I hate all this, we don’t do this in Hong Kong, in Hong Kong you don’t clear the street, you just don’t tell the public, you drive, you crash, you pay people money.” I said, “I’m quite comfortable with how we’re doing this one.”
Michael Caine, there have been many Bonds on screen, but only one Harry Palmer. With the revamp of the Bond franchise with Daniel Craig, I wonder do you feel that the Harry Palmer stories might benefit from a modern update and if so, how would you feel about a new younger actor taking on the role that made you a superstar?
I love new younger actors doing physical roles, I like to stand by the side and give orders. In Batman I’m Alfred the butler, I just serve dinner I don’t do any flying up the side of buildings or anything. There was one novel Len Deighton wrote that we didn’t film, it was set in Paris with a great title called A Expensive Place to Die. If they remade that, I would buy that novel, do that movie first and then go backwards to Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain and then Ipcress File.
Why would anybody want to remake those great films, you’d have to find an actor with balls the size of watermelons to try and step into your shoes.
I think they should remake crap films. There was a really crap film with Marlon Brando and David Niven and it was a disaster. We made it and it was called Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But my first movie when Shirley Maclaine took me to America, was Gambit - it’s very interesting because the Coen brothers are remaking that with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz. Now that could be a really superior remake with that pedigree.