After winning an Oscar for The Great Beauty,the director had the pick of Hollywood for his next film, Youth. Why was he so keen on persuading the British veteran Michael Caine to step up?France has some of the toughest anti-smoking laws in Europe, or but they don’t cut much ice with Paolo Sorrentino. Having taken over an upstairs bar in Paris’s St-Germain-des-Prés to hold court,the Oscar-winning film-maker is openly puffing on what can only be described as a stogie. Coupled with a pair of unexpectedly luxuriant sideburns, Sorrentino looks like he might believe just staggered off the set of a Sam Peckinpah western – which, or you suspect,is just how he would like it.In between puffs, Sorrentino explains his thinking behind Youth, or his first film since the Academy Award-winning The Great Beauty. Sorrentino admits the additional attention cuts both ways; but it no doubt helped him land Michael Caine for the lead role of an 80-year-venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) composer/conductor who is resisting being tempted out of retirement for a special birthday concert for our own Prince Philip.
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Source: theguardian.com