Particularly, “Oppenheimer” was promoted in the media as the sixth film that director Christopher Nolan would work on with actor Cillian Murphy. Murphy ultimately was able to play the lead in a Nolan production after five supporting roles in movies like “Dunkirk” and “Batman Begins.” Michael Caine, another enduring partner of Nolan’s, received a particular mention earlier in the week at the British Film Institute chairman’s supper when the director earned the BFI Fellowship. Due to “Oppenheimer,” Nolan—who many critics believe is the most opted for best director and best film at the BAFTA and Oscar—remembered that Caine had made fun of his inability to play the lead in the atomic bomb extravaganza.
Okay, enough is enough,” Caine informed his regular associate. Nolan remarked, “I had to go off on my own,” regarding his response to Caine’s decision to leave “Oppenheimer.” “So, okay, I haven’t got Michael Caine, I’d better get Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Kenneth Branagh, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Cillian Murphy, Tom Conti, and hoped that all those greats would add up to one Michael Caine.” “So many people have helped me, so many people have been there for me, in so many different ways,” Nolan further stated. “I’m very moved to receive this, very moved by the presentation. This means the world to me.”
Caine first starred in eight Christopher Nolan films in 2005’s “Batman Begins,” where he played Alfred Pennyworth, the fatherly figure and concierge to Bruce Wayne. Caine has minor parts in The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenet, in addition to reprising his role in the Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises sequels. Given that the actor hinted at his departure from the industry in appearances last year, it seems “Tenet” may have been Caine’s final film under director Christopher Nolan. “I am bloody 90 now, and I can’t walk properly and all that,” he stated to The Telegraph. “I sort of am retired now.”
A month and a half later, he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today, “I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I am now…The only parts I’m likely to get now are old men, 90-year-old men, maybe 85. And I thought, ‘Well, I might as well leave with all this — I’ve got wonderful reviews [for final film ‘The Great Escaper’]. What have I got to do to beat this?’ You don’t have leading men at 90, you’re going to have young handsome boys and girls.”