Michael Caine questions need for intimacy coordinators: ‘In my day, you just did the love scene and got on with it’

Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine has done a lot of romantic films across his career. In a new interview with The Daily Mail, the 90-year-old actor said he doesn’t understand the need for intimacy coordinators on film sets. He also said it’s ‘dull’ not to be able to call anyone a ‘darling’ these days. (Also Read: Michael Caine suggests upcoming film The Great Escaper might be his last: ‘I am 90 now, can’t walk properly’)

What Michael Caine said

“Really? Seriously? What are they? We never had that in my day. Thank God I’m 90 and don’t play lovers anymore is all I can say. In my day, you just did the love scene and got on with it without anyone interfering. It’s all changed,” Michael said in the interview.

In the same interview, Michael also criticised political correctness, or wokeness as they call it these days, on film sets. “It’s dull. Not being able to speak your mind and not being able to call anyone ‘darling.’”

Michael’s controversial kiss scene

While Michael is relieved he’s not being made to do intimate scenes at this age, he has done quite a few throughout his storied career. The most controversial has to be his kiss with the late Christopher Reeves, best known for portraying Superman, in Sidney Lumet’s 1982 black comedy thriller Deathtrap.

In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Michael opened up on that scene. He said, “It was a bit dicey to do — people said it could be a career killer and what are the girls going to think of you? A couple of people said, ‘Do you really want to do it, Michael? People will think you’re gay.’ I said, ‘No, they won’t. They know I’m an actor.’ I loved doing that.”

He explained in the same interview how he approached that difficult scene. “Many of my friends were gay, so I’d studied them and their movements and speech, so I basically knew what I was doing. And the parts were so very good. I’d never kissed a man on the lips before. Neither of us had ever kissed another man before, so we drank a couple of brandies. Then when it came time for the dialogue, we couldn’t remember it. So the kiss was a bit of a disaster,” said Michael.

Michael Caine, who made his Hollywood debut back in 1964, will next be seen in Oliver Parker’s film The Great Escaper, slated to release in cinemas on October 6.