Michael Caine Quotes & Sayings

What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write; and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. — Michael Caine

I'm the happiest grandfather in the world, I promise you. — Michael Caine

If you're blond, as I am, and you have blond lashes, you have to wear mascara, otherwise you're invisible on stage. — Michael Caine

To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative. — Michael Caine

If you go away on location for three months and your wife stays at home, you've made a whole new load of friends and she's made a whole new load of friends and you get home and you're kind of strangers. — Michael Caine

I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me. — Michael Caine

I sit waiting for things that I can't refuse. — Michael Caine

I won an Academy Award for 'The Cider House Rules,' playing an American. — Michael Caine

I think life has got to develop as you get older, and I don't want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life. — Michael Caine

I learned about life before I went into the theater, which is why I've been so happy. I was a soldier. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I've always got to have one impossible dream on the back burner. — Michael Caine

In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it. — Michael Caine

Every time you get a movie, you get a medical. So you know, you know you're alright for a couple of weeks. — Michael Caine

I want to stick around with the big boys. I don't want to be in the old folks home. — Michael Caine

I've been acting a long time, and I can play a Cockney gangster or a womanizer in my sleep or standing on my head. But what I try to do is I try to find characters that are as far away from me as I possibly can and then make them real. A French Nazi is about as far away from me as I can possibly get without actually going to Mars or something. — Michael Caine

I've had such a great time, I'd like to come back as me - and do it all over again. — Michael Caine

I had been in that part of the world as a soldier in Korea, so I had been interested in Vietnam. — Michael Caine

My career is going better now than when I was younger. Now I get the part. Back then, I'd get the girl. — Michael Caine

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

A man's body may grow old, but inside his spirit can still be as young and as restless as ever. — Michael Caine

When you're a movie star and you're young, you are always playing someone who's a better fighter, a better lover, a better everything than you. — Michael Caine

As an actor, I'll play anything. — Michael Caine

In my day, the drug was alcohol and the weapon was a fist, so it was very sort of innocent and primitive. Now you've got drugs, guns, and knives, which are so lethal. — Michael Caine

If I see any injustice done, I have a big enough mouth and the position to open up about it. — Michael Caine

The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years. — Michael Caine

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

It's vital to have your own space so you aren't constantly in each other's pockets. — Michael Caine

Save your money. You're going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think. — Michael Caine

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can't deal with a woman of their own age. — Michael Caine

Someone said to me the other day: "Well, you're eventually going to live until 110." And I said: "Well, who's going to keep me? What age do I retire? 100?" How are you going to live all those years and who is going to keep you doing it? I have a couple of grandchildren now so I'm banking on them. — Michael Caine

I just try to play more and more difficult roles. — Michael Caine

Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly - because if they don't speak fast enough, nobody will listen to them. — Michael Caine

I don't worry about the last shot or the next shot. I concentrate. Every shot gets a clean slate. And when a shot is over, I wipe it out absolutely. Tell a joke or something. If you worry about how you looked, how well you did, you'll go insane. — Michael Caine

I was a repertory actor, which meant that I did a play every week. I was a different character every week; for a year, I was doing 40 or 50 characters. — Michael Caine

You start pretending to have fun, you might have a little by accident. — Michael Caine

The first thing I'll do if I want to look really crappy is, I don't wear any makeup at all. — Michael Caine

I never bring a role home with me. The moment they say, 'It's a wrap,' it's gone completely. I'm a totally ruthless professional, and life is my family, not my work. — Michael Caine

I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them jokes against yourself. If you praise yourself, your stories aren't funny. — Michael Caine

I'm very, very family oriented. I'm a big cook and a good connoisseur and I only drink very good red wines now. — Michael Caine

I regard the theater as a woman I loved dearly who treated me like dirt. — Michael Caine

You cannot have one bathroom. And it don't matter how much you love your wife and everything, 'cause you wind up with no room at all. You just get a little corner, and you've got a toothbrush and your paste and a shaving brush and a razor. — Michael Caine

I've done a lot of radio in my life so I am absolutely used of working with the voice. I have a very distinctive voice so it's always great for me because I open my mouth and everybody knows who it is. — Michael Caine

One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow. — Michael Caine

I've been on movies where I literally couldn't hear what the other actor was saying. It's very awkward. — Michael Caine

Just because I have made a point of never losing my accent it doesn't mean I'm an eel-and-pie yob. — Michael Caine

I didn't know what I knew. I wasn't aware of what I knew. — Michael Caine

That to me is what my idea of film acting should be. There shouldn't be any acting. You should just be watching a real person. — Michael Caine

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! — Michael Caine

I've never been out with a married woman, never. I respect others properties. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I see myself as 38, but you don't notice it. — Michael Caine

You must always steal, but only from the best people. Steal any trick that looks worthwhile. If you see Vivien Leigh or Robert DeNiro or Meryl Streep do something stunningly effective, and you can analyze how he or she did it, then pinch it. Because you can be sure that they stole it in the first place. — Michael Caine

My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else. — Michael Caine

The American cinema in general always made stories about working-class people; the British rarely did. Any person with my working-class background would be a villain or a comic cipher, usually badly played, and with a rotten accent. There weren't a lot of guys in England for me to look up to. — Michael Caine

It's funny, people ask me, 'What would you consider the most romantic track on your record Mr Caine?' And I say 'Swollen' by Bent, and they say 'I think he's off his rocker!' — Michael Caine

I'm very much more choosy now. I do stuff that I really, really, really like. — Michael Caine

We should vote for the welfare of the country, not for the welfare of the party. — Michael Caine

I think what is British about me is my feelings and awareness of others and their situations. English people are always known to be well mannered and cold but we are not cold - we don't interfere in your situation. If we are heartbroken, we don't scream in your face with tears - we go home and cry on our own. — Michael Caine

If someone is very upper-class, you have a stereotype of him which is probably true. If someone has a working-class accent, you have no idea who you're talking to. — Michael Caine

It's much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script. — Michael Caine

Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ... not waiting to deliver your lines. — Michael Caine

80 percent of any gang is not there to attack someone. They're there so no one will attack them. — Michael Caine

I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I'm doing the next Batman. I have to become obsessed about what is offered to me. — Michael Caine

When you reach the top, that's when the climb begins. — Michael Caine

My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda, they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson, who wasn't too cool. He was a nice, homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked. — Michael Caine

Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It's very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell. — Michael Caine

I spent my life in the library reading books. — Michael Caine

My mother had heard all about miniskirts but had never seen one so I took her for lunch at Alvaro's [in Chelsea]. We walked down the King's Road and waited 10 seconds for our first miniskirt and a girl came along with her skirt tucked round her arse. I said: 'What do you think, ma?' And she said: 'If it's not for sale, you shouldn't put it in the window!' — Michael Caine

If you're an actor and you don't act for a long time you sort of think, I wonder if I can still do it. — Michael Caine

You can write shorthand and still look at the guy you're talking to. — Michael Caine

Use the difficulties - if you can't avoid them — Michael Caine

I'm forever testing myself. As a person and as an actor, I have no sense of competition. — Michael Caine

My view is that you should always remake failures because then you've got nowhere to go but up. — Michael Caine

My wife, my daughters, even my grandchildren are funny. You've got to keep a sense of humor because anger destroys you. — Michael Caine

I wouldn't make an anti-American film. I'm one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans. — Michael Caine

In my early days, I didn't know what a good film or a bad film was, and I was trying to make some money. As it happens I was lucky. I made some good films. — Michael Caine

I've got a lot of back-up because my father was a Catholic, my mother was a Protestant, I was educated by Jews and I'm married to a Muslim. So I won't lose out on a technicality. — Michael Caine

No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone. — Michael Caine

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom' ... I can't fathom my own heart. — Michael Caine

A lot of my best parts I've been the second choice for, so you never get too egotistical about anything. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot. — Michael Caine

I've never been competitive with other actors. I've been competitive with myself and I'm my own worst critic, a terrible critic I am, and unless I get something right, I feel very unhappy. — Michael Caine

I didn't want to come in the movie every so often, every 20 minutes saying, 'Dinner is served, would you like coffee?' — Michael Caine

Ive read an awful lot of books, Ive read alot of awful books — Michael Caine

I used to get the girl; now I get the part. In 'The Quiet American' you may have noticed I got the part and the girl. It's a milestone for me, because it's the last time I'm going to get the girl. — Michael Caine

Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy,"Easy" doesn't enter into grown-up life. — Michael Caine

I don't think you retire from movies; movies retire you. — Michael Caine

Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! — Michael Caine

I'm not a betting man, and even if I was, I certainly wouldn't bet on this! I would not bet on the Best Actor. — Michael Caine

I had an extraordinary belief in myself. For years people told me to give it up and even though I was poverty- stricken, I never thought I should give it up. — Michael Caine

I'm a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine