Sir Michael Caine would like to play James Bond as an "old man".
The 84-year-old actor insists there are no dream roles left for him, but the idea of playing an elderly version of the iconic British spy would be appealing.
Asked if there’s anything left he wants to play, he replied: "No I seem to have played every bloody thing."
But then when the suggestion of an elderly Bond, in the vein of Sir Ian McKellen’s old Sherlock in ‘Mr. Holmes’, was suggested, he replied: "James Bond as an old man. Yeah. We’ll have to tell Barbara (Broccoli, producer)."
Though veteran former Bond stars Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore are still alive, Michael insists he’d be the better choice for the role.
He quipped to Event magazine: "Yeah, well, they’re older than me!"
Though he’s getting older himself, the ‘Harry Brown’ actor insists he has no trouble remembering his lines, but it does take him much longer to learn them.
He said: "I thought I would forget the lines when I got older but I don’t. It just takes me ten times longer to learn them."
And the veteran actor has no plans to slow down his career any time soon.
He said: "I was 84 yesterday. I see people in the paper who have died aged 84 and it says, ‘He had a good innings.’ A good innings? I’ve not started batting yet! We’ve only just had the tea break."
Michael will next start filming ‘Hatton Garden’, the story of the infamous 2015 London jewellery robbery, with Sir Michael Gambon, Ray Winstone and Jim Broadbent, and is desperate to meet Brian Reader, the 73-year-old mastermind behind the theft, after being warned he was "too common" for the role.
He said: "I tried to get to see him [in jail] but I haven’t managed it yet. I’ll keep trying. It’s tricky because I don’t know how he speaks.
"I was told he was a Cockney, but then the writer talked to his daughter. She said, ‘Who’s going to play my father?’ He said, ‘Michael Caine.’ She said, ‘He’s too common.’
"It helps, in one way. I was worried about how a thick Cockney accent would go down in America. When ‘Alfie’ came out, it made me a star in Britain but I had to do new dialogue for the States because they said, ‘In America, they don’t know what you’re talking about.’ "
Michael Caine wants to be old Bond
