Michael Caine: What it was, in those days, everybody I knew was not famous, and nobody I knew didn’t become famous. It’s like — I had this friend called David Baron, who was an actor. And he said to me, he said, “I’m going to write a play, and you’re going to be in it.” I said, “All right, David,” you know.
He said, “I’m fed up with this. I’m going to be a playwright,” he said. But he said, “David Baron’s not my real name. I’m going to write under my real name.” I said, “What’s your real name, David?” He said, “Harold Pinter.” I was in his first play, at the Royal Court, called The Room. And you meet people like that.
And the other one, the other actor I was with was John Osborne. He said, “I’m going to write a play,” and he said, “I’ve nearly finished it.” I said, “What’s it called?” He said, “Look Back in Anger.” I went, “Oh, great. Lovely.” You know. It was time after time that you met people, that they just — everyone I knew. Peter O’Toole, he was in the play; he became a movie star. I was his understudy. He became a massive star, you know. Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, they all became stars, and these were guys I knew. Terence Stamp, he became a star. I shared a flat with him. So it was one of those eras like that, where everybody became someone.