ABSTRACT
MH: Well, it’s quite curious. I read the script and then had discussions about who should play the role. I must be truthful and say that I’d always seen Ian Hendry in the role. I’d always seen him as even seedier than he is. And I must be honest that when I shot the very first scene in the bar with Michael Caine-I’d done two television films prior to that and for television in those days you didn’t have to have stars at all —I was looking through the camera, and he walked up to the bar and filled the screen and ordered a beer in a straight glass, and I looked through the camera and I realised that I was in a completely different ball game. It wasn’t to do with reality any longer, it was something else that I had no idea of. I mean, I was always a film buff, but as a director I had never really understood, I think, until I first saw Caine’s face fill the screen and that changed my whole conception of film-making. Q: What was it like working with John Osborne?
