Michael Caine Couldn’t Have Been More Wrong About Beyonce’s Acting Career Post-‘Austin Powers’

When working together on Austin Powers in Goldmember, pop goddess Beyoncé told Michael Caine that, one day, she wanted to win an Academy Award for her acting. Caine believed that Beyoncé would reach her goal then, and he believes it now – but has he even been to the movies since Dreamgirls?

Back in 2002, Jay Roach and Mike Myers booked a very special leading lady for the third and final installment of the Austin Powers series in Beyoncé, then still known as Beyoncé Knowles before reaching mononymic stardom in her music career. At the time, Beyoncé was just beginning her solo career while her girl group Destiny’s Child was on hiatus, and, eager to establish herself as a triple threat, the soon-to-be superstar made her theatrical film debut as undercover FBI agent Foxxy Cleopatra in Goldmember, a film that was never destined for Oscar gold – though Beyoncé believed it could be a stepping stone toward that goal.

According to Caine’s memoir, Don't Look Back, You'll Trip Over, while working together on Goldmember, Beyoncé told the 1986 Oscar-winner that her goal was to win her own Academy Award one day, and Caine still believes that such an accolade is in the mega-star’s future.

Meanwhile, Beyoncé hasn’t appeared in a live-action theatrical feature film since the 2009 erotic thriller Obsessed, which begs the question: When will Myers stop messing around and make Austin Powers 4? Can he sneak it in by next awards season?

According to Caine, Beyoncé, who was "only nineteen at the time, I think, and a very nice person" during the making of Goldmember, already had the attitude and work ethic of an international sensation. “You could already tell how focused she was and how big a star she was going to be,” Caine said of her drive.

"I remember the first day on set, I asked her what her ambition was, and she said, ‘I want to win an Academy Award for a movie.’ Not a trace of arrogance, just clarity," Caine recalled, then revealing his hope that the music giant hasn't forgotten her on-screen aspiration. "I’m sure she’ll win an Oscar eventually. She’s already won a bunch of Grammys!" Caine exclaimed.

However, following the release of Austin Powers in Goldmember, Beyoncé had other plans for her future, and the Oscar hunt seems to have taken a backseat. The very next year, Beyoncé released her first solo album, Dangerously in Love, which would blast right past gold and go septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) with a whopping 11 million album sales worldwide.

Since the meteoric rise of her solo career, Beyoncé's acting ambitions have understandably waned – the pop icon only appeared in six more feature films following Goldmember, only one of which (Dreamgirls) ended up being Oscar-worthy at all. Nevertheless, Caine still believes that Foxxy Cleopatra will reach that goal she set for herself when she was still a teenager, though with Caine now in his nineties, he may not be around for her acceptance speech.