HOWZAT

MC “Among other things [laughs].”

JL “To me, it was just an idea I thought was great – two men fighting in a house over a woman – but Harold puts all these layers on to it.”

MC “I remember Larry [Olivier] and I rehearsed for about five days and he was in a bit of trouble. He was taking Valium, he had been fired from the National [Theatre] and it was a rotten period for him. When we started rehearsals it wasn’t very good and that was a bit worrying for Joe [Mankiewicz], because there were only two of us in it. But after a couple of days of rehearsal he brought in a moustache and put it on and then he was great. That opened it up for him. He said to me at the end of the week, ‘I could never act with my own face.’ And if you look at him, he’s always got a bit of a nose, some teeth in, some contact lens or a beard. He had to have something.

“Also it was quite strange, if you think of a parallel: he was Sir Laurence Olivier and I was an ordinary young actor and I am Sir Michael Caine and Jude is just Mr Jude Law – and the difference with the class thing, now to then, is huge. In the papers then it was, ‘Oh, the greatest actor in the world is gonna chew Michael Caine up into little bits, the little Cockney upstart from Alfie.’ Larry sent me a letter before we met saying, ‘When we meet you may be wondering how to address me and you should call me Larry from that moment onwards.’ None of that would occur with Jude. He calls me Michael and that’s it.”

The talk moves to acting and when they first met, at the Oscars in 2000, when both were nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Law for The Talented Mr Ripley and Caine, who won, for The Cider House Rules.

JL “Actually, we met the night before [the Oscar ceremony] at the Miramax party. We got on straight away, didn’t we?”

MC “Yes, we did. The thing about actors is that they only like good ones and they are completely snobbish with bad actors, who are ignored. And if you think you are good yourself, you immediately become friends with everyone else who is good. It’s like the thing about being famous. If you are famous you can go up to any other famous person and say ‘Hi’. Whereas if you weren’t famous, people would tell you to piss off. I recognised Jude as a good actor.”

JL “You want to know why we get on? You don’t feel like you are always sitting there in reverence with Michael – although you are. It’s very easy to get on with him. I hope we work together again.”

MC “We keep in touch, and we’ve got mutual friends. David Tang is a mutual friend – he hosts these wonderful dinners.”

Fame and the media are the next topics. Recently Law was in the headlines for allegedly assaulting a photographer outside his home.

MC “I had about a quarter of the attention Jude has, because there weren’t the magazines back then and there weren’t the paparazzi photographing your every move. Now they will buy a picture of absolutely anything – like in Jude’s case, taking the children to school. I never had any of that. I used to take my child to school in a Rolls-Royce and no one took a picture. The Sixties were so much easier. I can remember we all used to go to the same restaurant on a Saturday lunchtime. Just about every actor in London would be there, and I never saw a photographer. These days there would be 100 outside, 24-7, and that’s the problem. What is the same is the British problem with success. I got hit when I was younger by the press for having the audacity to be a success, and so does he.”

JL “Well, there’s always going to be criticism of what you do as an actor and that’s fair enough.”

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