By Sean Chavel in Los Angeles

Michael Caine is an old pro who doesn’t remember some of the movies he’s been in, simply because he’s been in so many. But he walks into a hotel room at a press junket in Los Angeles with much enthusiasm, as he in what is sure to be one of this summer's biggest blockbusters. Caine co-stars in "Batman Begins," where he plays Bruce Wayne's always sharp and quick-witted butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Here, Caine talks about the Batman legend as well as his own film legacy.

Q: How did the role of Alfred come to you and why did you choose to join the film?

MICHAEL: Christopher turned up at my house on a Sunday morning with a script and said he was doing Batman, which I thought was extraordinary because I know what Christopher had done with "Insomnia" and "Memento." And he made me read it because he wouldn’t leave the script. So I gave him lunch and read the script. And I’ve seen many Batman movies before. And this was called "Batman Begins." I was rather suspicious of that. And at the end, I said, ‘Yeah, this is 'Batman Begins.' I’ll do this.’ And that’s why I did this. Because it was Christopher and the script.

Q: Chris and [screenwriter] David Goyer said they used "The Man Who Would Be King" as a reference point in writing Alfred...

MICHAEL: They never told me that. I would have asked for royalties!

Q: Did they discuss anything with you?

MICHAEL: No, he never mentioned "The Man Who Would Be King." He wouldn’t want to pay me anything before I did the movie. No, I don’t see any references to "The Man Would Be King" in it. But I’m going to go back and have another look.

Q: What qualities did you want to bring to Alfred, since he's been played before in other movies?

MICHAEL: I wanted to bring a very unusual, very tough butler for Batman. I didn’t want to use your obsequious, bobbing, bitter-y serve type of person. I want someone extremely tough. I did a back story on myself. I do it very quickly. He was an SAS Sergeant, which is a very tough British army unit. Got wounded. Didn’t want to leave the army. Became in charge of the sergeant’s mess in the canteen. Therefore he knew how to serve drinks and prepare stuff, which made him attractive to Bruce Wayne’s father, the billionaire. Because he wanted a very tough butler. And that’s how we came around… And I used the voice of the first sergeant I ever had in the army.

Q: Did you think about this character and talk about him with other people?

MICHAEL: No, I never talk with friends about acting. No, no. That’s how I keep them. [LAUGHS] No, I just made up my own mind as I was reading it. It comes to you if you’ve been doing this for as long as I have. I just said right there, ‘He’s a sergeant.’ That’s easy. That’s where he came from. I had this voice… Your first sergeant in the army, even though I was 18 – that was a long time ago – stays with you. So that’s his voice in the picture.

Q: There's a reference when Alfred tells Bruce that he's almost like his savior. Was that improvised or scripted?

MICHAEL: No, everything was in the script. But I was reminded. I made up a military man. And in the British army, officers have a private who does all their stuff. Cleans their boots and their brasses. And he, in fact, is called a “batman.” So I’m Batman’s 'Batman'.

Q: How was working with Christian Bale?

MICHAEL: Christian is so dedicated. The first sign of it is physical. I haven’t seen "The Machinist." Otherwise I would have been more impressive. I remember him from being a slight young man from "American Psycho." I mean, you did look at him and go, ‘God!’ And I turned up on the set of Batman and there was Arnold Schwarzenegger standing in front of me. And so I thought, ‘Boy, this guy has really gone into it.’ Then his dedication to the part is quite extraordinary. He’s a wonderful actor. He’s a very nice man, too. I don’t know him socially. Because you don’t go out to dinner with the guy who’s playing Batman. Because he’s been there two months before you got there, and he’s going to be there three months after you’ve gone. He’s been doing this for, you know, it’s absolutely exhausting. One of the things about his own character that affected our relationship is that he’s a very, very…

We talked about this. He hates master-servant relationship. So we drew a line along that in which I know how far an English servant would go without being so obsequious or overbearing. And he knew how far he would go in patronizing a servant, in which is no way at all. It came out as a very good relationship which met in the middle of equal lines. It was very fortunate for us that I knew the other side of it. Because my mother was a cook in these big houses in the country during the war when I was evacuated. So I knew everything about the butler. And I’ve seen the line in which masters, were very kind to this stuff, came down to – and I knew the line where the butler went up to – and neither of them ever crossed the line. And that’s what I did with Christian. I always called him Master, Master Wayne. Because I wanted to keep this idea that he was a small boy which made the humorous stuff with him funnier. Because I treated him as a small boy in these shenanigans he was getting up to. I always pissed off, you know, that this little boy has gone up and climbed up the Empire State building with a guy in his hand.

Q: How did Christian react when you first called him 'Master Wayne'?

MICHAEL: Yeah, he liked it. He thought, ‘Yeah, would that be what he’d be called?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ What he knew is that it was truthful. If it’s the truth it works, if it ain’t… doesn’t.

Q: Because you became his father in a way?

MICHAEL: Yes, because Bruce becomes an orphan. And he brings him up.

Q: This is the first time we see you with pyrotechnics blowing up around you...

MICHAEL: I was a soldier when I was very young. I was around enough pyrotechnics to last me the rest of my life! [LAUGHS]

I was at an age when there wasn’t that much stuff where they blew things up. In recent years, there’s more if you’re a leading man in that type of thing. But I was in "Austin Powers: Goldmember" which is quite pyrotechnical on a comedy basis. But I have not been in any films that have been special effects-lead.

Q: Your co-star, Katie Holmes, has a new beau in the form of Tom Cruise. Have you ever met him and what did you think of him?

MICHAEL: I met Tom before she did. The first time I met Tom was at the after-party of the premiere here of a film called "Educating Rita" (1983), and my wife went to the toilet, and so there was an empty seat next to me. And suddenly there was a young man sitting next to me. And he said, ‘I want to be a movie actor.’ And he was – he was very young – and he was telling me how he wanted to be a movie actor. And I sort of did that ‘good luck’ to him and all. I thought he’d go somewhere [career-wise]. And I asked him what his name was. And he said, ‘I’m Tom Cruise, sir.’ And then he went. And that was it. And he called me sir. I just saw [today] in a corridor and he called me Michael. [BIG LAUGH] I … I’m a butler, again, that’s what it is.

"Batman Begins" opens in theaters June 15th