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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Michael, you didn't want to watch the old one again?
MICHAEL CAINE: No. And also, I had a history with Pinter, because I did his first play at the Royal Court Theater [in 1957]. But then, for 50 years, he wrote all this great stuff. I was the first one [to work with him], and I never got another bloody movie out of it! Nothing!
JUDE LAW: It was a match made in heaven. That's what I felt. I was so excited and proud to have brought these guys together.

This Sleuth is much, much darker than the old one.
CAINE: It's Pinter, isn't it? [Laughs] It's our Harold. Well, I wanted to go darker with it.
LAW: Also, am I right in thinking that the humor works because we committed to the darkness?
KENNETH BRANAGH: You kind of laugh, because you need to, because it's so tense. It's so twisted from early on.

Jude, I read something interesting you said, that Michael is the reason British actors don't have to hide their accents. What did you mean by that?
LAW: What I was saying was that there was a period in the '60s when finally the class structure was permeated in film. Prior to that, everyone had to speak [poor English], and [turns to Caine] it was only then some of your contemporaries lost their accents, wasn't it?
CAINE: Like Roger Moore. He's from exactly the same place as me. But he talks like this [slows down his speech and sounds very proper] you know... unless you tread on his foot. [Everybody laughs]
LAW: It was as important as Bogart's influence on American acting, the way Bogey shifted away from that awful English-American accent that there used to be.

Michael, was this a weirder job than usual because you had done a Sleuth before?
CAINE: No. Like I said, I hadn't seen the old movie for 30 years. And this is so different. It's a different director, I'm playing a different part anyway. It was just like getting a new script. I had no sense of a remake whatsoever.
BRANAGH: Also, we really didn't talk about the old one.
CAINE: We never discussed it. Because no one knew what to say about the other one because we haven't seen it.

Do you have fond memories of making the first one, working with Olivier?
CAINE: We had a wonderful time, yeah. We had a good time. But, I mean, it was very hard work, because Olivier, he could be a bugger. I always remember Olivier trying to turn me around on my own close-up. He was up to all those tricks. And when I said to [Mankiewicz] ''Did you see what he did there, Joe?'' He said, ''Yes, Michael, don't worry, I'll take care of it in the editing.'' He said, ''I will protect you.'' And he did.
BRANAGH: It was very different than the atmosphere on this one. It was a very level playing field. It was very nice.

Did Michael pull any of that stuff on you, Jude?
LAW: No!
BRANAGH: And also, I'll say that from my point of view, when you've got two guys like this, and it was my 11th movie —
CAINE: You've done 11?
BRANAGH: I've done 11, whether you like it or not. And it was the first film, where I felt we were all directing. I never think of this as my film, I think of it as our film.
CAINE: And we all had a laugh as well. You've seen the way we all are. And there were no nerves. But the whole movie was an adrenaline rush. I was never so exhausted at the end. When I got home, I slept for two days.
LAW: We'd generally start pretty early in the morning —
BRANAGH: And it was like two athletes coming down. They were very aware of what was ahead of them. I'd say, ''The boys are in tiptop form. We've got nine pages of dialogue today.'' In another life, they wouldn't remotely be expected to do this.


Posted Oct 16, 2007 | Order Article Reprints
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