Sir Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, Jr. is better known, to almost everyone, as Sir Michael Caine the actor and two time Oscar winner.Born and bred in South East London Maurice Micklewhite left school with four O-Levels at sixteen and completed his national service between 1952 and 1954.When he embarked on his acting career he changed his name to Michael Scott but there was already an actor using this name. After spotting that The Caine Mutiny was playing at a nearby cinema he became Michael Caine.After a handful of minor role Caine made a name for himself in 1964's epic Zulu as the upper middle class Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead.Zulu was closely followed by two of his best known roles Harry Palmer in The Ipcress Files in 1965, a role he would reprise twice for Funeral in Berlin in 1966 and Billion Dollar Brain in 1967, and 1966's Alfie for which he was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Actor category.Gambit was the actor's first American film in the 1966 after he was invited by Shirley McClaine to alongside her.

The late sixties early seventies brought a string of iconic and successful roles for the actor including The Italian Job, in which Caine's Charlie Croker attempts to stage a gold bullion robbery in Turin, British Gangster film Get Carter, The Man Who Would Be King alongside Sean Connery and he second Oscar nominate performance in Sleuth with Lawrence Olivier.

1983 brought a third Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in Educating Rita and in 1986 Michael Caine won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Woddy Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters.

Despite appearances Michael retired from acting in 1992 to write his autobiography What's It All About?

'I retired and wrote that book and this is me retired I have made twelve pictures and won an Oscar since I have retired, which is typical of me. But now I have this whole new part of my life, the last fifteen years, which I have not written about but then my wife said don't do it to hell with it so I won't I don't want to row with her,' he explains.

Since 1992 Michael has made a string of movies including the Cider House Rules which saw him win his second Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as well as Little Voice, The Quiet American and Batman Begins.

'That’s the point that is the whole point I’m in a situation now where I only do movies that I can’t refuse, and I’m not talking about money, and it’s just films I can’t turn down: Sleuth by Harold Pinter I can’t turn that down, Batman’s butler I can’t turn down, this movie that I’m doing you will see when you see why I can’t turn it down it’s a wonderful movie I just do that and I haven’t got another movie because I haven’t fond a script that I want to do, as I said I want a holiday.

'This business retires you and how that works is I will say I’m not going to work for six months then I will day to my agent send me some scripts and he will say there aren’t any and it has happened to people I know. But you know the people that will retire you are the insurance company if you are late and screw up you are retired,' he said.

Batman Begins in 2005 was Michael's first Hollywood blockbuster alongside a stellar cast of Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson.

All comic book fans are waiting with bated breath for summer 2008 when it's sequel The Dark Knight, which sees the return of the Joker, roles into cinemas.

Like Bale, Freeman and Oldman Caine reprises his role as Bruce Wayne's loyal butler Alfred.

'Well I played a butler in that for Christ sake! The new one the problem with that one was how do you top Jack Nicholson as the Joker? It’s called the Dark Knight and Heath Ledger plays the Joker and he is fantastic. I couldn’t see how you could top Jack but he has at least equalled him at minimum it’s extraordinary.

'Jack’s Joker was a very nasty old uncle this Joker is a moniacle, murderous, psychopath and when you see the make up it looks like he is mentally gone, and he puts the make-up on to disguise himself for the raids, and he never takes it off again and gradually it looks like leprosy. I’m a great fan of Christopher Nolan, one of his biggest fans, and I thought Batman Begins was the best Batman I had ever seem but I think this will be better. 'I’m the butler you have a fight and I will bring you a cup of tea. I had never been in one of those big movies before and when they offered me the butler I said yeah this is great.

'We did a scene out near Bedford there’s a great big aircraft hanger and we had Chicago built in there, and it didn’t take up half of it and we built Chicago in it, we had an office in the new one that was two hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide with a completely neon ceiling very low and it was incredible I love all that.'

Michael is currently working on a smaller picture which also stars Anne Marie Duff and David Morissey.

'But then I’m just as happy doing this little picture called Is There Anybody There? Which is about a little boy whose parents own an old folks home and everytime he makes a new friend they die so he goes looking for their ghosts.

'And I’m an old magician who has come in to die and he helps him finds his friends. It’s a wonderful story with a wonderful new young Irish director called John Crowley.'

When asked what was the best thing he thought he had ever done he simply said: 'My own view of life comes from the saying 'You must not compete with your contemporaries or your predecessors you must compete with yourself' so all I ever try to do is make a better film and so I have only accepted scripts were I felt I could improve on things.

'I had gone from Educating Rita, which was the last good picture I made before I mentally retired, and then I went to Little Voice to Cider House Rules to The Quite American and then to this and then those are things that I regard as each one is better than the last one.

'And now I'm doing this movie that I'm in now called Is There Anybody There, which again is another step in that direction.

'The best performance I have ever given is this one (Sleuth) because this is the latest I have improved on The Quiet American.

Sleuth is out 23rd November.

Helen Earnshaw

Read the exclusive Sleuth interview with Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh.

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