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美国国家公共电台 NPR Actor Michael Caine, 85, On His Long Career: 'The Alternative Was A Factory'

时间:2018-11-09 07:59:27

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Sir Michael Caine has been filling our movie screens for half a century. His breakout role came in 1966 as the callous1 heartthrob in "Alfie."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALFIE")

MICHAEL CAINE: (As Alfie) Well, you all settled in? Right, we can begin. My name is Alfie. I suppose you think you're going to see the bleeding titles now. Well, you're not, so you can all relax.

SHAPIRO: More than a hundred movies later, Caine is better known these days for his supporting roles, including the fatherly butler Alfred in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE DARK KNIGHT2 RISES")

CAINE: (As Alfred) You have to find another way. You used to talk about finishing, about a life beyond that awful cave. It might also mean saving your life.

SHAPIRO: Well, today Sir Michael Caine joins us to talk about his new memoir3, "Blowing The Bloody4 Doors Off." Welcome to the program.

CAINE: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: Let me first ask how I should refer to you. You addressed this question in the book by telling a story about Sir Laurence Olivier, one of the great actors of the 20th century.

CAINE: Yeah. I was doing a picture with him called "Sleuth," and we had to rehearse for two weeks before. And I'd never met him. And he was Lord Olivier. And before we actually met, I got a letter from him saying, it's occurred to me that you may be wondering how to address me when we meet. And then he said, after the handshake, I will be Larry forever.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Well, you're in London, and I'm in Washington, D.C., but I hope we can have an imaginary handshake.

CAINE: Yeah, and I will be Michael forever.

SHAPIRO: All right.

CAINE: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: I'd like you to take us back to your youth, if you would. You were 6 years old when you were evacuated5 from London during World War II in the Blitz.

CAINE: Yes.

SHAPIRO: How did that experience shape the person you've become?

CAINE: It shaped it in a couple of ways actually. Mentally, I lived on a farm for six years, and I got a great education. And there was also another thing about - the war was an incredible thing for all of us in one way. And, I mean, talk about use the difficulty, which is my motto.

SHAPIRO: Use the difficulty.

CAINE: Yeah. Yeah, use the difficulty. But using the difficulty was - in the war, the only food you could get was organic food because they used all the chemicals in explosives. And so for six years, all we had was organic food. And there was no sugar. And all these things that we worry about so much now - in the war, you couldn't get them. So we all grew up sort of very healthily in the war.

SHAPIRO: Before the war, you were poor, malnourished. You say you had rickets6. And the war actually helped you become a strong, tall, healthy person.

CAINE: Oh, yeah. Well, I came from a slum in London. And London then was very smoggy because we didn't have central heating and all that. We had coal fires. And so, you know, it was always smoky and unhealthy, terrible. To be taken to the country in the fresh air with exercise and everything, I sprang up. By the time - I'm 6-feet-2, but by the time I was 14, I was 6 feet tall.

SHAPIRO: Class informed so much of your early career. You write in this book that when you started acting7, the only working-class British actor who had made it in Hollywood was Charlie Chaplin. And he was silent.

CAINE: That's right. And he didn't have to talk. I mean, he talked with the same accent that I do because he came from exactly the same places I come from. Your life - you think you're doing great, and you're going to do this, and you did that, and you're so clever and all that, but life depends a lot on timing8 for all of us. And my timing was perfect. It was the '60s which changed everything for class, you know? We stopped taking notice of bourgeois9 or upper-crust people. I mean, there's still class here in this country.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

CAINE: But it doesn't count. I mean, it has no power.

SHAPIRO: And so you just happened to come of age at a time when you were able to make strides that somebody of your class would not have been able to 20 years earlier.

CAINE: Ten years. Ten years. Someone wrote a leading play with a character called Alfie who was a Cockney layabout womanizer, you know? No one had ever written a play like that in England. And it was an era when everybody became something. You know what I mean? It was quite extraordinary.

SHAPIRO: You had crippling stage fright. And when you performed onstage, you kept a bucket in the wings to be sick in.

CAINE: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: Why keep doing something that caused you such terror?

CAINE: Because I couldn't help it. I had to be an actor. I wanted to be an actor. And of course you have to remember with me, the alternative was a factory. I mean, when I was 20, I was in the army. And I came out of the army when I was 20. I came home, and I worked in a butter factory.

SHAPIRO: I found it really refreshing10 that you say in this book that it's OK to take roles in films because of the money. Not everything has to be an Academy Award-winning performance.

CAINE: 'Cause when you start - all right, so you had "Alfie." You know, then I made "The Swarm," which was a dreadful picture about bees.

SHAPIRO: It was a horror movie about bees. Yeah.

CAINE: About bees, yeah. But it was...

SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Just hearing you say that is like, how could that be a good movie?

CAINE: But the point was that I only sort of glanced at the script because the stars of it were Henry Fonda, Jose Ferrer, Olivia de Havilland, Fred MacMurray. And it was all these massive Hollywood stars. And they were all in it. I thought, well, it must be good.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Right, famous last words.

CAINE: Famous last words. And the first time I realized that it was a big flop11 is we did a special scene where they had the bees in a hive up on the ceiling above us where we were talking. And as we were talking, we noticed little black dots on our shirts. It was - the first reviews were in. Even the bees were crapping on us.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: I didn't know bees do that. I mean, I guess of course, but - yeah, all right, well...

CAINE: Bees do. Yeah, if they don't like you, they crap on you.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter) You've worked with all of the greats.

CAINE: Yep.

SHAPIRO: And many of them have one thing in common, which is that they like to do a Michael Caine impression (laughter).

CAINE: Oh, yeah, they all do them. Everybody does an impression of me.

SHAPIRO: There's one clip of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in their film "The Trip" - and I wish we could play the entire thing, but it goes on and on and on, so we're just going to give a little taste of this.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE TRIP")

ROB BRYDON: (As himself) Michael Caine's voice now in the Batman movies and in "Harry12 Brown." I can't go fast because Michael Caine talks very, very slowly.

CAINE: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE TRIP")

STEVE COOGAN: (As himself) Right, this is how Michael Caine speaks. Michael Caine speaks through his nose like that. He gets very, very specific. It's very like that. When he gets loudly, it gets very loud indeed.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: It's an odd way to pay respect, isn't it?

CAINE: When he did that when I was listening, I thought he had a cold...

(LAUGHTER)

CAINE: ...Because he was honking13 like this for this, that, you know?

SHAPIRO: Michael Caine, you do a very good Michael Caine.

CAINE: Isn't that good?

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

CAINE: I mean, I'm really good at this. I do it a lot.

SHAPIRO: Some 85 years or so.

CAINE: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: It is a funny way to pay respect, but it is a form of respect.

CAINE: Oh, of course it is. What it also is is a form of success in a way because the impersonator knows that everybody knows who he's talking about.

SHAPIRO: Yeah. You're now 85 and still working. When you think back to the hunger, the insecurity, the class structure, the struggle of your early years, what's it like to now realize that you can rest, that you are secure, that you have accomplished14?

CAINE: Oh, that's one of the greatest things in my life. I thank God every day. I am religious. I don't practice one religion because my father was a Catholic, my mother was a Protestant, I was educated by Jews, and I'm married to a Muslim. So...

(LAUGHTER)

CAINE: But I believe in God. Rocky Graziano, an American boxer15, wrote an autobiography16 which I thought described me. He said, somebody up there likes me. I've thought of nicking that title, but they told me I couldn't (laughter).

SHAPIRO: Well, it's been a pleasure watching you on-screen over all these years and a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you so much.

CAINE: Thank you, sir. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

SHAPIRO: Michael Caine's new book is called "Blowing The Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons In Life."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "ALFIE'S THEME DIFFERENTLY")


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 callous Yn9yl     
adj.无情的,冷淡的,硬结的,起老茧的
参考例句:
  • He is callous about the safety of his workers.他对他工人的安全毫不关心。
  • She was selfish,arrogant and often callous.她自私傲慢,而且往往冷酷无情。
2 knight W2Hxk     
n.骑士,武士;爵士
参考例句:
  • He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
  • A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。
3 memoir O7Hz7     
n.[pl.]回忆录,自传;记事录
参考例句:
  • He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
  • In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中,她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。
4 bloody kWHza     
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染
参考例句:
  • He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
  • He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。
5 evacuated b2adcc11308c78e262805bbcd7da1669     
撤退者的
参考例句:
  • Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
  • The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。
6 rickets 4jbzrJ     
n.软骨病,佝偻病,驼背
参考例句:
  • A diet deficient in vitamin D may cause the disease rickets.缺少维生素D的饮食可能导致软骨病。
  • It also appears to do more than just protect against rickets.除了防止软骨病,它还有更多的功能。
7 acting czRzoc     
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
参考例句:
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
8 timing rgUzGC     
n.时间安排,时间选择
参考例句:
  • The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
  • The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。
9 bourgeois ERoyR     
adj./n.追求物质享受的(人);中产阶级分子
参考例句:
  • He's accusing them of having a bourgeois and limited vision.他指责他们像中产阶级一样目光狭隘。
  • The French Revolution was inspired by the bourgeois.法国革命受到中产阶级的鼓励。
10 refreshing HkozPQ     
adj.使精神振作的,使人清爽的,使人喜欢的
参考例句:
  • I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
  • The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼,特别解乏提神。
11 flop sjsx2     
n.失败(者),扑通一声;vi.笨重地行动,沉重地落下
参考例句:
  • The fish gave a flop and landed back in the water.鱼扑通一声又跳回水里。
  • The marketing campaign was a flop.The product didn't sell.市场宣传彻底失败,产品卖不出去。
12 harry heBxS     
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼
参考例句:
  • Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天,人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
  • Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。
13 honking 69e32168087f0fd692f761e62a361acf     
v.(使)发出雁叫似的声音,鸣(喇叭),按(喇叭)( honk的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停,喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Flocks of honking geese flew past. 雁群嗷嗷地飞过。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
14 accomplished UzwztZ     
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的
参考例句:
  • Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
  • Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。
15 boxer sxKzdR     
n.制箱者,拳击手
参考例句:
  • The boxer gave his opponent a punch on the nose.这个拳击手朝他对手的鼻子上猛击一拳。
  • He moved lightly on his toes like a boxer.他像拳击手一样踮着脚轻盈移动。
16 autobiography ZOOyX     
n.自传
参考例句:
  • He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
  • His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

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