Top 275 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Caine
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English actor Michael Caine.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
As an actor, I'll play anything.
I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.
In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn't know anyone unknown who didn't become famous.
I wouldn't make an anti-American film. I'm one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans.
Hollywood is a cross between a health farm, a recreation center and an insane asylum. It's a company town, and I happen to like the company!
The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse.
English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.
I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't.
Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.
Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write.
Wherever I live, if there isn't a restaurant I want to go to of a certain type, then I open it. That's all. For selfish reasons.
Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture.
You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.
The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That's what I want to do.
I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I'm pig-headed.
What a lot of people don't realize about gangs, in my opinion, is that a gang is not there to attack you. Eighty percent of the people in a gang are there to stop anyone from attacking them. You join a gang for protection, not to go out and hit someone.
The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.
Anyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.
I'll always be there because I'm a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I've any talent is beside the point.
I'm a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.
If you're a movie star, you get the girl, you lose the girl, and then you get her back. But if you're a character like me, you lose the girl, then you get another one, then you get another one, then you lose them all, then you lose your life.
The difference between a movie star and a movie actor is this - a movie star will say, 'How can I change the script to suit me?' and a movie actor will say. 'How can I change me to suit the script?'
For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.
My closest friends are Roger Moore, who is an actor, Sean Connery, who is an actor, Terry O'Neill, who is a photographer, Johnny Gold, who was the boss of Tramp, and Leslie Bricusse, who is a composer.
I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.
Obsession is a young man's game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.
You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.
Save your money. You're going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.
The greatest luxury is not driving. I didn't own a car until I was 30, and that was a Rolls-Royce, so it was cheaper to insure a chauffeur. I never want to drive again. My mind is always on other things. I hate parking, and I'm very short-tempered and would get road rage, I'm sure.
Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.
My wife comes with me on all the movies, but she is not an appendage to a film star or anything like that. She is a completely intertwined partner. She is the other half of me. Also, we're still very much in love with each other. We always have been, we always will be.
At 69, I got the girl! And it wasn't a 68-year-old girl, either.
A lot of my best parts I've been the second choice for, so you never get too egotistical about anything.
I'm forever testing myself. As a person and as an actor, I have no sense of competition.
To me, 'Educating Rita' is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.
Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I've been available to pick up an award.
The standing ovation threw me... to be held in such regard in a town so full of talent is quite something.
The three actors I admire the most are all dead. Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy and the French actor, Jean Gabin. They're all very natural, sort of masculine without being overly macho.
If you think you're going to be up for an Oscar, you schedule your moviemaking.
My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.
There's quite a lot of bad stuff written about me. My wife even says a lot of bad stuff about me. But she is wonderful.
To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.
When I'm doing an accent, you shouldn't notice it for a while, if I'm doing it right.
To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative.
At age 11, I went to a Jewish school. I speak Yiddish. I'm Church of England Protestant. My father was Catholic, and my mother was Protestant. My wife is a Muslim.
When you reach the top, that's when the climb begins.
Every time you get a movie, you get a medical. So you know, you know you're alright for a couple of weeks.
Alfie was the first time I was above the title; the first time I became a star in America.
If you're a movie actor, you're on your own - you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.
Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.
I'm the audience's representative on earth.
I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.
But the whole point of the Sixties was that you had to take people as they were. If you came in with us you left your class, and colour, and religion behind, that was what the Sixties was all about.
I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.
January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out.
Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.
I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can't deal with a woman of their own age.
My own mentality is that I've retired. They send me these scripts and if I absolutely have to do it, then I go to work.
Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.
I see myself as 38, but you don't notice it.
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