I've known another who has deliberately kept a whole cast and crew waiting all morning to make a point. I was working on a movie with a male star who was very jealous of his time while he was shooting. One day he was called to the set and kept waiting around. I forget why: the light was wrong, or the weather changed or something. One of those things that happen a lot. The following morning he sent a message to say, "Because you kept me waiting for four hours yesterday, I'm going to be four hours late today." There was nothing we could shoot without him so we, the entire cast and crew, sat twiddling our thumbs for four hours. When he finally turned up, everyone looked at me to see what I would do. I think they were hoping I'd have a big row with him, and it's true, I was absolutely furious. But instead I pointedly took him into a corner, put my hand on his shoulder and said, "I just want to say thank you. I was out all night last night and I hadn't learnt my dialogue. Now I've had a fabulous nap, I've learnt my lines and I'm feeling great. In fact, it just occurs to me: I'm going to a party tonight so can you be late again tomorrow? That way I won't be the one getting into trouble." He wasn't late the next day, or any other day.
The irony of all this is that I have a terrible temper myself. But these days I never lose it and I never allow anyone else to lose theirs either.
The last time I blew my top on a movie set was in 1970 when I was making The Last Valley, directed by James Clavell and costarring Omar Sharif. The Last Valley was, like many others of that era, a war movie, but with a difference: it was set in the seventeenth century, during the Thirty Years War. I was playing the captain of a mercenary force and, unfortunately for me, that meant horses.
My daughter Dominique was by now an expert horsewoman and, knowing my unhappy history with and sheer terror of horses after my Zulu debacle, had given me some advice: I should ask for a docile mount and stipulate that it should be a mare. Imagine my surprise and delight when I was shown to my horse - the biggest I had ever seen and very obviously a stallion. His name was something Germanic that was translated for me to "Fury." "No, no," I was assured, when I raised a query. "He's as quiet as can be and was chosen with you in mind." I had a few practice rides and Fury did indeed seem to be a gentle soul. Until the first day of shooting, that was. I had got into my costume and thought Fury and I would go for a little trot. The trot quickly became a canter, and the canter became a gallop. Hanging on to Fury's mane for dear life, I really thought I was going to die. Eventually we were brought to a screaming halt (it was me doing the screaming) by a jeep from the unit, about two miles from the set.
As soon as I got back to the set I went ape shit at everybody, yelling and screaming until my voice was hoarse. Jimmy Clavell waited until I had shouted myself out, then dismissed the crew for two hours, sat me down and gave me one of the most useful lessons of my life. "I was a prisoner of the Japanese during the war," he said to me, very quietly and calmly, "and the reason I survived and others did not is that I never lost face. If you lose your temper in front of people you do not know, you are displaying a most intimate emotion in front of strangers. You look a fool and you feel a fool. You lose their respect and it is almost impossible to win it back. You must keep control. If you cannot control yourself, you look weak, and you have no chance of controlling others. And, by the way, the reason your horse ran away was that your sword was slapping against his side. Every time he felt that sword on his side he thought you were urging him to go faster. Now, you are going to have to apologize to everyone on set."
He was right. I did apologize and from that time on I have never lost my temper on a set, no matter what happens. I have also never got back on a horse and nothing and no one could tempt me to do so.
Actually, I did lose it just once recently. Daniel Radcliffe was doing an interview a couple of years ago about Now You See Me 2, a very fun heist movie where the robbers are brilliant magicians. When he was asked what it was like working with me, he said I still seemed to love my job despite my advanced age, and that "the only time he got remotely irate was when a camera smacked him in the head." Even then I only got angry with an inanimate object. I would never, ever shout at anyone less powerful than me. It is not just about losing face: it would be hideously unfair.
If you anger me, or cross me, you will never see me lose my temper. James Clavell taught me that. In fact, you will never see anything, because you would just disappear from my life. My parents taught me that. My dad taught me never to let anyone have two goes at me. And my mum taught me that the worst thing you can do to an enemy is to ignore him. To be angry is to be a victim. To move on is the only victory.
Michael Caine "Blowing the Bloody Doors Off" (2018)
