Michael Caine Quotes
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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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Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ....not waiting to deliver your lines.
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I spent my entire time reading books and going to the cinema, just to escape.
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First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.
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I was watching cartoons on television and a commercial came on for one of the Batman series where I played a butler. And then my grandson looked up at me and he said, "Do you know Batman?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Really," I said, "Yeah." I said I know him very well. And he told all the boys at school, he said, "My grandpa knows Batman. Does your grandpa know Batman? OK, no. Mine does.
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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.
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You're never too old to be crazy.
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I try to make everyone around me feel comfortable.
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I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.
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80 percent of any gang is not there to attack someone. They're there so no one will attack them.
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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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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.
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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 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.
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I heard my first laughter on stage, when I was about 10 years old. It was gold pantomime and I remember I was playing Baron Fitznoodle, who was the father of the ugly sisters in "Cinderella." And I walked on and got a great big laugh and I thought that was fantastic, until I looked down and found that my flies were open. And so I always check my flies. I even check my flies on radio.
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I was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Imagine signing that autograph! You'd get a broken arm. So I changed my name to Michael Caine after Humphrey Bogart's 'The Caine Mutiny,' which was playing in the theater across from the telephone booth where I learned that I'd gotten my first TV job.
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You've got to be flexible. Directors do a massive amount of planning and homework, and if after all that your director decides to throw it all out of the window and shoot spontaneously, then you must follow his lead.
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I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.
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If you're a movie actor, you're on your own - you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.
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When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best.
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I spent my life in the library reading books.
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I must admit, the only reason I joined an amateur dramatic society is because I couldn't get to kiss any girls - I was chasing girls all the time - and so I thought if I join it, there might be some love scenes. And there was a particular girl and I thought I might get to kiss Amy. I never did get to kiss Amy but I did get to kiss Elizabeth Taylor, so it was all right, a lot later.
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Don't sit as if you have nothing to say. You should be bursting with things to say. You just choose at this particular place and time, not to say them.
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Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.