Michael Caine, one of Britain's most enduring screen stars, has revealed he abandoned method acting after gaining weight for his role as an alcoholic professor in the 1983 film Educating Rita, only to miss out on the Academy Award. Despite widespread acclaim for his transformation, the actor decided the physical sacrifice hadn't paid off and resolved never to attempt it again, favouring instead a more restrained approach rooted in personal experience rather than full immersion into character.

Caine, who rose to fame in the 1960s with Zulu and Alfie before winning Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986 and The Cider House Rules in 1999, told The Times he "put on a load of weight" for the role but lost out to Robert Duvall, who won for Tender Mercies. He has previously described his technique as drawing on Stanislavski's concept of "sense memory" rather than the intense immersion favoured by actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, and once recalled convincing a real academic he genuinely looked the part while filming on a university campus.