Michael Caine Quotes
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I'd like it to be remembered as you had some fun. We're only here living for some fun. I think if you learn something, all well and good, but we're only here to give you some fun. Along the way, you may find out something.
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You don't retire from the movies. The movies retire you.
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Hey, I always say: if you want a quiet life, become a monk.
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I don't work very much, and I just sit here waiting for a script that I can't refuse - and I'm not talking about money.
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If you're blond, as I am, and you have blond lashes, you have to wear mascara, otherwise you're invisible on stage.
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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!'
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When I was 6 my father went to fight in the war, so he was my big hero. I thought he was the greatest thing.
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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.
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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.
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You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.
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I'm very much more choosy now. I do stuff that I really, really, really like.
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The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.
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Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture.
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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.
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As an actor, my attitude towards using of film versus digital is, if you have film, filmmakers have to cut eventually so you don't have to learn all that dialogue. With digital, they can just go on forever and it's a nightmare. So, I like film - nice short takes.
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You're never too old to be crazy.
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Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write.
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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.
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I'm a frustrated stand-up comic. If you hand me a microphone and I get one laugh, then I'll go on for 20 minutes.
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I had been in that part of the world as a soldier in Korea, so I had been interested in Vietnam.
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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.
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Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.
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My dialogue coach said to do a Texas accent, you lean on the next word, and that was the clue to me.
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I spent my entire time reading books and going to the cinema, just to escape.