Veteran actor Michael Caine spoke to Rolling Stone about his co-starring role with Christopher Reeve in Deathtrap, the 1982 thriller about a playwright and his student. Amid multiple plot twists involving murder, suspicion, and creative collaboration, Reeve and Caine engage in a kiss.
At the time, an onscreen kiss between two men, particularly one who was best known for playing Superman, was big news.
Said Caine: ‘It was a bit dicey to do — people said it could be a career killer and what are the girls going to think of you? A couple of people said, “Do you really want to do it, Michael? People will think you’re gay.” I said, “No, they won’t. They know I’m an actor.” I loved doing that.’
He added that the two were so flustered over performing the kiss they couldn’t remember their lines: ‘Many of my friends were gay, so I’d studied them and their movements and speech, so I basically knew what I was doing. And the parts were so very good. I’d never kissed a man on the lips before…Neither of us had ever kissed another man before, so we drank a couple of brandies. Then when it came time for the dialogue, we couldn’t remember it. So the kiss was a bit of a disaster.’
Caine, now 85, is set to star in the upcoming film Medieval, due later this year.
