I've made my last film, says Sir Michael Caine
He's played cads, soldiers, spies and criminals - and even acted alongside Muppets as Ebenezer Scrooge.
But Sir Michael Caine's new film will likely be his last, the Oscar winner has admitted, as he said leading roles were hard to come by at 88.
The Italian Job actor said his new turn in Best Sellers "has turned out to be my last part", ending a career spanning almost 70 years.
Sir Michael said he had not received any other offers of work for the past couple of years, adding: "Nobody's been making any movies that I want to do, but also I'm 88. There's not exactly scripts pouring out with a leading man who's 88."
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: "I haven't worked for two years, I have a spine problem which means I can't walk very well.
"I also wrote a couple of books which were published and were successful. I'm now not an actor, I'm a writer, which is lovely because as an actor you have to get up at half past six in the morning and go to the studio.
"As a writer you can start writing without leaving the bed."
The veteran star, who has been acting professionally since 1953, has earned two Oscars and six nominations in a career that has seen him star in more than 130 films.
Best Sellers stars Sir Michael as a bitter, alcoholic writer who is cajoled into embarking on a book tour by a publisher.
The film was also the first time he had played an alcoholic character on stage or screen, the actor told Simon Mayo on Kermode and Mayo's Film Review.
Shot before the Covid-19 pandemic brought the industry to a halt, Best Sellers was released last month and has received mixed reviews, with Variety praising the actor's performance for its "withdrawn melancholy" and the "unabashedly sentimental sort of father-daughter dynamic" with his younger co-star, Aubrey Plaza.
The film will not be Caine's final on-screen appearance, however, as the Czech war film Medieval, in which he stars as a fictional adviser to the 14th century king Wenceslaus IV, still has yet to be released.
