BONUS NUMBER 39: MICHAEL CAINE TALKS ABOUT STRAIGHT ACTORS PLAYING GAY CHARACTERS
(Did You Sleep With the Models?)
Stanley Tucci says it's fine for straight actors to play gay roles. What did Michael Caine say on the subject in his Mandate interview?
In a recent BBC interview Tucci said, “An actor is an actor is an actor. You’re supposed to play different people. You just are. That’s the whole point of it.” The Oscar nominee received critical acclaim for playing gay characters in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and in Supernova (2020). “As long as it’s done the right way,” Tucci added. “But when it tips into caricature and stereotypes, then it becomes a problem.” In the past, when gay actors risked career shut-down if they betrayed a hint of homosexuality onscreen or off, offensive performances were the standard. Two examples from the long, long list: Richard Burton and Rex Harrison in Staircase (1969) and Ryan O’Neal and John Hurt in Partners (1982).
It’s ultimately a pointless debate, and, like so many politically correct but irrelevant bickerings, tiresome. How foolish is the current outcry over Helen Mirren as Golda Meir: some have howled because Mirren isn’t Jewish. By this twisted logic, only a Roman Catholic could portray JFK, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, or any other member of that family. Natalie Portman, who is Jewish, played the former first lady in Jackie (2016). No howls reported.
By the same ludicrous logic, a black soprano would be disqualified from singing Mimì in La Bohème; Renée Fleming would be forever barred from Carmen (not Spanish, you know), from Eugene Onegin (how dare they consider her for Tatyana when she has not a drop of Russian blood), from Der Rosenkavalier (nothing Germanic about her).
Bradley Cooper, neither bisexual nor Jewish, dared to play Leonard Bernstein in Maestro (2023). Controversy arose — probably from sources with no idea of Bernstein’s artistry or his importance — because Cooper added a prosthetic nose. Some considered this antisemitic. Bernstein’s children and the Anti-Defamation League came to Cooper’s defense.
I’m baffled by Cooper’s decision: his own nose is as big as Bernstein’s, perhaps bigger. Was he inspired by the hideous prosthetic glued onto Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002)? In a calamitous performance, Kidman and her schnozz looked more like Golda Meir or Jimmy Durante than Virginia Woolf, a great beauty in her youth and a striking presence until her death at age fifty-nine. Her husband was Jewish, Virginia wasn’t. Did the makers of The Hours know even that much?
Tucci’s thoughts differ from those of Tom Hanks, who told The New York Times Magazine that a straight actor could not take on a gay role like the one he played in Jonathan Demme’s 1993 legal drama Philadelphia. Hanks starred in the film as a gay man with HIV who is discriminated against at work; he won the Oscar for Best Actor that year.
“Let’s address ‘could a straight man do what I did in Philadelphia now?’ No, and rightly so,” Hanks said. “The whole point of Philadelphia was, Don’t be afraid. One of the reasons people weren’t afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man. We’re beyond that now, and I don’t think people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy.”
“It’s not a crime that someone would say we are going to demand more of a movie in the modern realm of authenticity,” Hanks added. “Do I sound like I’m preaching? I don’t mean to.”
It does sound preachy, and the sermon is half-baked.
For the April 1984 issue of Mandate, Edgar Matthews spoke to Michael Caine, whose latest film was Educating Rita. Our writer opened the interview like this: "A transvestite in Dressed to Kill...a gay actor married to Maggie Smith in California Suite...a gay playwright in Deathtrap kissing tall, dark, and handsome Christopher Reeve. ' I could tell Christopher wasn't gay, ' Caine chuckles, 'because he didn't close his eyes when I kissed him. ' "
Our interviewer noted that "Unlike most film stars, Caine does not pick a role to match his popular persona -- rather, he picks parts with a lot of meat, 'something I can get my teeth into,' he says. ' I've never thought of myself as a big star. I've always tried to be a good actor. Most big stars would never play a homosexual role, fearing what their fans might think. I'm not that type of actor. ' "
Another interviewer asked Michael Caine what it was like to kiss Christopher Reeve. "I just closed my eyes and thought about England," he said.
N.B. Michael Caine, now in his ninetieth year, recently announced his retirement from acting.