Michael Caine announces retirement from acting

NEW YORK: British cinema veteran Michael Caine has officially retired from acting, and the recently released feature, The Great Escaper, is his final project.

“I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I am now. I’ve figured, I’ve had a picture playing the lead and had incredible reviews. What am I going to do that will beat this?” the 90-year-old actor said. In The Great Escaper, the legendary actor featured alongside another British icon Glenda Jackson, who completed the film months before her death in June.

Based on a true story, the film featured Caine as Bernard Jordan, the 89-year-old British World War II Royal Navy veteran, who in June 2014 “broke out” of his nursing home to attend the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France.

Caine said he wanted to bow out on a high note. “The only parts I’m liable to get now are 90-year-old men or 85. They’re not going to be the lead. You don’ have leading men at 90. So I thought, I might as well leave with all this,” he said.

Caine, whose career spanned seven decades, is one of the tallest actors in British cinema. He has won two Oscars for his performances in Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules.

The actor has starred in several critically lauded as well as commercially successful films such as 'The Italian Job', 'Battle of Britain', 'Get Carter', 'The Last Valley', 'The Man Who Would Be King', 'The Eagle Has Landed', 'A Bridge Too Far', 'Alfie', 'Children of Men', 'The Prestige' and The Dark Knight trilogy.