The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [109]
The next day we went for another walk and were confronted by an even more unexpected sight: a Japanese wedding party with the men in full morning dress – tails and top hats – and the bride and bridesmaids in all their regalia, being photographed on the beach. It looked most incongruous, but it was only the first of many as one wedding party after another posed on the sands. A local told me later that the reason so many Japanese come to Australia to get married is so that they can escape the huge expense of a full ceremony at home to which they would need to invite everyone in the community to avoid losing face.
I was beginning to enjoy the straightforward attitude of the Australians I met. I’d decided to stop drinking for a few weeks – something I do occasionally – and went into a liquor store, or ‘grog shop’ as it was described on a sign outside. ‘Can I have some alcohol-free beer?’ I asked the assistant inside. He looked at me rather puzzled. ‘What for?’ he asked. A perfectly reasonable question, I thought, so I said, ‘I’m going on the wagon.’ ‘OK, mate,’ he said helpfully. ‘What you need to do is go next door to the supermarket and look under ‘lemonade’.’ Very sensible advice: I did, and there it was.
This straightforward attitude carries over to food. It wasn’t only the movie catering that was excellent. We had some fantastic meals out while we were there, and I particularly enjoyed the Morton Bay Bugs – a delicious shellfish. I asked the waiter why something as good as that had such a basic name and – like my friend in the grog shop – he looked a bit puzzled for a minute and then said, ‘It’s because that’s what they are and that’s where they come from.’ Fair enough – you can’t argue with that! In fact, I was surprised by the quality and variety of Australian cuisine (I think I had been expecting some sort of old-fashioned duff English food), and I mentioned it to an Aussie restaurant owner I got talking to. ‘You Pommie bastards are all the same,’ he said. ‘You always underestimate us!’ I agreed with him and in return he assured me that ‘Pommie bastard’ was an affectionate description of the English (hmmm . . .). I told him I quite understood and we parted on excellent terms.
For years after making Twenty Thousand Leagues I was puzzled as to why the young American actor who played the romantic lead – who was wonderful and very talented – hadn’t made it big. I was sure he would become a star as soon as the film was out, but nothing happened. I had forgotten all about him until I was in America a couple of years ago and suddenly he was everywhere: Grey’s Anatomy had become one of the most popular shows on TV and Patrick Dempsey one of its biggest stars. It proves again just how fluid the worlds of film and TV are – and I like to think it proves I know a star when I see one!
After my travels to South Africa for the Mandela film and our trip to Australia for Twenty Thousand Leagues, plus a couple of trips to Miami, it was quite a relief to be back in England for a while. But I knew I needed a great part in a real movie, not a made-for-TV movie, and I needed it to be set in England because I was fed up with travelling. Actually, from where I was standing, it looked as if what I really needed was a miracle – and to my astonishment I got one.
The bringer of my miracle was the American producer Harvey Weinstein who with his brother Bob ran the film company Miramax – charmingly named after their parents, Miriam and Max. Among other great films they had put together were Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love so I was very excited when Harvey sent me the script for a movie called Little Voice.
The star of Little Voice was a brilliant young actress called Jane Horrocks, who had had great success in the theatre with the same role. Not