Sir Michael tells Jack to keep his clothes on for a long career
VETERAN actor Michael Caine has warned young star Jack Whitehall not to strip off on screen.
The 84-year-old actor, who won fame as the bed-hopping hero of Alfie, said he had never done a naked scene in a film and was adamant he never would.
He made the comments on The Graham Norton Show as comedian and actor Whitehall revealed a sex scene between him and Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria was cut from his latest television series, Decline And Fall.
Sir Michael said: “An actor controls the audience and the moment you take your clothes off, you have lost them. I have never done nudity and I never would.”
Whitehall stars alongside Poirot star David Suchet, 70, and Longoria, 42, in the BBC 1 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic satirical novel.
The 28-year-old Fresh Meat star plays theology student Paul Pennyfeather, who, after being expelled from Oxford, takes a teaching job at a murky public school.
He told Norton: “I was bragging about my sex scene with Eva Longoria and then it was cut.
“I was very upset, but it wasn’t the best sex scene.
“I was wearing pyjamas and double-sided tape had been used on them. As Eva ripped my top off, it pulled out my chest hair and I was literally in tears.”
Caine was on the show alongside Shawshank Redemption star Morgan Freeman, 79. In the new comedy Going in Style, the pair and Alan Arkin, 83, play lifelong friends who turn to crime when their pensions are lost.