Michael Caine Quotes
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I learn the whole time. I think it would be dull if I thought I was going to work and wouldn't find something new. We always learn.
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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.
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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'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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I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got.
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How can I change me to suit the script?
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There was a certain moment. I was about 61 - two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying - "I don't wanna do it. The part's too small." And he sent it back to me, he said, "You shouldn't read the lover. You should read the father.
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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.
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I never regret anything. I always said that when I'm old, I want to be sitting there regretting the things that I did and not the things that I didn't do; and now I'm old, and I don't regret anything! I had fun. I had fun, and I'm still having it.
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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.
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I spent my life in the library reading books.
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When you're a young actor you ring your agent every evening. It's not like when you're in Hollywood where you do one picture a year. You just hope you get a day on television.
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I learned about life before I went into the theater, which is why I've been so happy. I was a soldier.
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You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.
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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.
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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.
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Not only is acting more than a part-time job, it's more than a full-time job. It's a full-time obsession.
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I've always played very human sort of characters.
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In film, other actors' performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn't giving you what you want, act as though he were.
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For Cider House Rules, I was doing a New England accent.
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I sit waiting for things that I can't refuse.
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I'm not tough anymore, I'm 82.
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And to Tom Cruise, for if you had won this, your asking price would have gone down so fast. Do you have any idea what supporting actors get paid? We get only one trailer, a small one, in the back.
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Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.