BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — He may be a knight of the realm, but Michael Caine knows a thing or two about being a servant. After all, he grew up in the grand estates of Britain — but not as the coddled, upstairs heir-apparent. No, he was the downstairs ragamuffin.
"My mother was a cook. So I was always backstairs with the butler and everything, so I knew that relationship," says Caine, seated at a linen-clad table in a hotel room here.
In his latest role in "Batman Begins" Caine plays the butler of all butlers, Albert Pennyworth, Batman's valet and true-blue companion. "I knew the lines above which a real butler wouldn't go in familiarity," he says.
As Alfred, Caine is not only alert to Bruce Wayne's, er, "eccentric" needs, he's a father-figure as well.
"I call him 'Master Wayne' throughout the whole picture, even though he's whatever age he is. And Alfred's brought him up, and he tries to teach him moral values. He's on about, 'You may be a vigilante,' and things like that, and his respect for his family, his respect for (Bruce's) father, it brings it back to a reality, and it's also quite humorous because he talks to him as though he's a human being, instead of here's this incredible icon. And he's also the butler, but he's a bit tougher than that. So it's a very different sort of butler."
Caine is a different sort of actor, too. The man, who has played everything from a cross-dressing killer to a beauty consultant, left school at 15, and got interested in acting a year later when he served tea in a London theater. He began as an extra and bit player after years of toiling at odd jobs like hoisting crates in a butter factory, shivering in a meat market and starting his show-business career as a lowly stage manager.
"The first thing you do when you make a movie is you pay off the debt you incurred over the years trying to get a movie," he says.
"When I finished 'Zulu' I got 4,000 pounds, my first movie. When I paid off all the debts, I still owed 8,000. Then you sort of make a hit picture, you get nominated for an Academy Award and you get sucked in. 'America wants me, you're a British actor — geez, Hollywood!' Then some big Hollywood producer rings you. The first one was Otto Preminger. I wound up making 'Hurry Sundown,' which was a piece of junk. Preminger had just done 'Anatomy of a Murder,' 'Laura' — he was one of the greatest directors. It was HOLLYWOOD."
Five years ago Caine was knighted by the queen, but he remains unimpressed.
"Well, it made a difference to me personally, because it was a great honor if you're English, but it doesn't mean anything to anyone else in the world," he says in his Cockney accent.
"So to go around the world expecting people in other countries — who have no idea what you're talking about — to call you 'Sir' is ridiculous. Everyone calls me Michael, I insist on that on the sets, everyone, even the little girl assistant . . . people are quite stunned at that, I say, 'You just call me Michael.' I come from very humble beginnings, and I remember all those things," he says.
"And also I was a small-part actor, you have to remember, treated like dirt by the stars sometimes, and I remember that. And so that sort of formed how I behave on a movie set, and I never lose my temper. I go home and smash the windows," he smiles.
Caine, who always worries about his next job, has two movies out this summer, "Batman Begins" and "Bewitched," in which he plays Nicole Kidman's father.
"This was dark and very tough and everything," he says of "Batman." "On 'Bewitched,' it was the first time I'd ever worked in a movie where I never did a scene with a man, I only did scenes with Nicole, Shirley MacLaine, Kristin Chenoweth, and the director was a woman, Nora Ephron. And so it was a very feminine time for me, it was lovely. It was the first movie I've worked on where the director cooked your dinner on Sunday night and served it herself. And it was great, and it was very, very gentle and very nice."
"And I love women, I've two daughters and a wife and a housekeeper, so I'm used to this thing. So it wasn't like going to work, really, I just said, 'Get me some stuff,' and people got me stuff, and gave me a cup of tea every now and then."