Michael Caine Quotes
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If I work with a bad actor, my reaction is to immediately become worse than they are.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow.
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Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
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I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, 'Educating Rita.'
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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.
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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.
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My view is that you should always remake failures because then you've got nowhere to go but up.
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A lot of my best parts I've been the second choice for, so you never get too egotistical about anything.
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The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought: "That's what I want to do."
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By the time the Oscars are on I'll be seventy. How many more chances am I going to have to get nominated for an Oscar?
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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.
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I come from the slums; I come from a hard background; I come from a poor family; and I was a soldier.
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If you're a gardener you don't need a gym... You're always carrying large sacks of manure all over.
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Since I was 19, I've had the most fun possible every single day, even when I had a rough life. It was the army which taught me about life, and the theater which taught me how good it could be.
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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.
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I don't want to sound like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, but I do think there should be some sort of national service for young men.
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I've made the transition from star to character actor and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
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I don't meet stockbrokers or carpenters or coal miners; I spend all day with actors, composers and photographers.
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I always say to my wife, don't tell anyone I watch this shows like The X Factor and Pop Idol, but it fascinates me because I've done so many auditions and been knocked back.
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I was so poor for so long that I didn't use anything. I didn't drive cars, I didn't eat very much. So, I figured the world owed me a debt, so I've been eating very well and have had a very big car for a long time. But I still haven't caught up with my youth.
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In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it.