Two-time Academy Award winner Sir Michael Caine announces retirement

The two-time Academy Award and three-time Golden Globe winner declared his last onscreen appearance with the end of his role in the new film "Best Sellers" on Friday on the BBC Radio 5 show "Kermode and Mayo's Film Review".

"Funnily enough, it has turned out to be what is my last part, really, said the legend about his appearance in the movie. "Because I haven't worked for two years, and I have a spine problem, which affects my legs. So, I can't walk very well" he added.

Recognising the impact of his age on his acting career, Caine shared "'There haven't been any offers obviously for two years because nobody's been making any movies I'd wanna do. But also I'm 88. There's not exactly scripts pouring out with a leading man who's 88, you know?"

"And I also wrote a book, a couple of books, which were published and were successful. So, I'm now not an actor, I'm a writer, which is lovely because as an actor, you have to get up at half-past 6 in the morning and go to the studio. As a writer, you can start writing without leaving the bed," he gloated about his career in writing. 

He stars alongside Scott Speedman, Cary Elwes and Ellen Wong in this final film, as famed crotchety writer Harris Shaw, who halfheartedly goes on a tour to promote his first book in decades, after his publisher Lucy Stanbridge, played by Aubrey Plaza, hunts him down in pursuit of saving her late father's publishing house.

The film was shot in Montreal in 2019, just before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, and was released in the United States and Canada on 17 September 2021.

Sir Michael Caine made his debut as a real-life war veteran in the 1956 film "A Hill In Korea."

He carried on to do well-acclaimed films throughout the 1960s, which included his breakthrough performance in "Zulu" (1964) and the one that landed his first Oscar nomination - "Alfie" (1966). 

The actor finally earned his first Oscar for "Hannah And Her Sisters" in 1986 and won another one for "The Cider House Rules."

He was finally given a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in the year 2000.

Caine once feared that his acting career may sink when he was 70. He credits Christopher Nolan for revitalising his prestige as a super hero. 

"When I was about 70 the world starting to close in on me,"  Caine said at a screening of the director's film Inception at Somerset House in 2018, speaking of the film's director: "he (Christopher Nolan) came to me with Batman Begins and he restarted my acting life.

Sir Michael Caine paved a steady acting career for himself, spanning over 60 years and more than 130 films, with two roaring Academy Awards and three Golden Globes. 

His most recent book 'Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life' was published in 2018.