Top 111 Michael Caine Quotes

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.

People say I’ve ‘retained’ my Cockney accent. I can do any accent, but I wanted other working-class boys to know that they could become actors.

I’m a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.

I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.

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.

In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn’t know anyone unknown who didn’t become famous.

Obsession is a young man’s game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.

When I’m doing an accent, you shouldn’t notice it for a while, if I’m doing it right.

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

When you reach the top, that’s when the climb begins.

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.

Wherever I live, if there isn’t a restaurant I want to go to of a certain type, then I open it. That’s all. For selfish reasons.

You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.

Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I’ve been available to pick up an award.

When you reach the top, that’s when the climb begins.

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.

To be a movie star, you have to carry a movie. And to carry a movie where you play the title role is the supreme example.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The standing ovation threw me… to be held in such regard in a town so full of talent is quite something.

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.

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

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

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can’t deal with a woman of their own age.

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.

You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can’t deal with a woman of their own age.

I’ll always be there because I’m a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I’ve any talent is beside the point.

Anyone can write. But comedy, you’ve got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.

I feel like 35. At 35 you’re old enough to know something and young enough to look forward to what you can do with the knowledge. So I stayed at 35!

I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.

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

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn’t.

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn’t.

Alfie was the first time I was above the title; the first time I became a star in America.

Let me put it this way: If you’re sitting in a movie and you’re watching me, and you say, ‘Isn’t that Michael Caine a wonderful actor?’ then I’ve failed.

I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.

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.

Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you’ve had a life like mine, you have to.

I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, ‘Educating Rita.’

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work. In fact, I’m offered so much good stuff that it’s not so occasional.

I don’t think you retire from movies; movies retire you.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I’m pig-headed.

At 69, I got the girl! And it wasn’t a 68-year-old girl, either.

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.

People say I’ve ‘retained’ my Cockney accent. I can do any accent, but I wanted other working-class boys to know that they could become actors.

Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.

Things are not quite what they seem always. Don’t start me on class, otherwise you’ll get a four-hour lecture.

I usually control the environment I’m in, but my control is very quiet and subtle.

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.

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.

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!

I won an Academy Award for ‘The Cider House Rules,’ playing an American.

I think I have the secret of a successful L.A. restaurant, especially now that so many Europeans live there. You have to have a place where they can see out the windows, see the world passing by. Europeans fancy that.

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.

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.

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.

I come from the slums; I come from a hard background; I come from a poor family; and I was a soldier.

I just love to go home, no matter where I am, the most luxurious hotel suite in the world, I love to go home.

To be a movie star, you have to carry a movie. And to carry a movie where you play the title role is the supreme example.

I won an Academy Award for ‘The Cider House Rules,’ playing an American.

When I look in the mirror, I see someone who’s happy with how he looks, because I was never one of the handsome Hollywood people. And I’ve had success as I’ve gotten older, because I’m able to play characters. I no longer get the girl, but I get the part.

In England, I was a Cockney actor. In America, I was an actor.

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.