Movies - TV
Children Of Men Is The Closest We'll Get
To Michael Caine Playing John Lennon
By DREW TINNIN
The ghost of John Lennon and his legacy as a political activist was channeled by Michael Caine's laid-back character Jasper Palmer in Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi masterpiece “Children Of Men.” Jasper is a warm beacon of hope in "Children of Men" and something of a radical, a far cry from Michael Caine's actual political leanings in real life.
When they were filming that first pot-smoking scene, Cuarón didn't even know that Caine was a conservative, but they both bonded over John Lennon. Cuaron recalled, "When we met, I guess we connected because he met John Lennon, and he said, 'Can I play as if I was John?' I said, 'That's fantastic.'”
The knowledge that Michael Caine was essentially pretending to be John Lennon in those sequences gives an entirely new lens to watch his character Jasper through. The sci-fi dystopia presented in "Children of Men" takes place in an alternate timeline from ours, and it's somewhat comforting to imagine (pun intended) a world where Lennon is still alive.