While promoting his independent drama Is Anybody There?, Michael Caine answered questions for RadioFree.com and graciously took a moment to talk about The Dark Knight and his first meeting with Heath Ledger.

Here is an excerpt from that interview and what Caine had to say about Heath & TDK:

MEDIA: . . . you had signed on to do three Batman films, yes?

MICHAEL CAINE: Yes. If they do another one, I'll probably be the butler. [laughs] I hope I'm still alive! [laughs] But Michael Gough, who played [Alfred] before me...The last time he played [Alfred], he was 84.

MEDIA: Nolan took a break with another film between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight... [sic] ...So he'll probably come around again to Batman after Inception, wouldn't you think?

MICHAEL: I would imagine so. And that [villain] would be, probably, The Riddler.

MEDIA: What did Heath Ledger's Best Actor win at the Oscars mean to you? And do you think it was something that was important for his legacy?

MICHAEL: Oh, I thought it was very important for his family as well. I was a big fan of his from the first time I met him. I had never met him before, and I met him on the set where he invades our party we're having, and I'm standing by the lift and I expect to greet people, and all his gang's behind him...

But before that, I had met [him], obviously, on the set, and we were chatting. He had this make-up on and I was saying how fantastic I thought it was. And we were just chatting quietly. And then they said, "We're ready to shoot." And I had never seen the performance. We were just talking, you know? And then he came out of the elevator, and I was absolutely stunned by that, the way he did it, and the energy that went into it.

And then when I saw the movie...There's an opening monologue and a closing monologue that he does, which I thought, "If anybody's going to better that and get an Academy Award above him, I will pay good money to see that." And nobody did beat him. I'm so pleased.

MEDIA: It will be a tough act to follow for anyone playing The Riddler...

MICHAEL: Yeah. I thought it would be a tough act to follow for anybody who played The Joker after Jack Nicholson. You know what I'm saying? "He's the Joker!" We'll see. We'll see...



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Used with permission.


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