A lot of movie stars are not great actors; they're just very good-looking. And when they start to age and they don't have the looks any more, then it's over.
— Michael Caine
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Am I a car aficionado? No: for me, cars have always been just for transport. I didn't even know anyone who had a car until I was 14 or 15.
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.
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.
The first thing I'll do if I want to look really crappy is, I don't wear any makeup at all.
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.
I had been nine years in the theatre and hadn't had massive success. My only thing was I wanted to be an actor and I didn't care when, where, or how much for.
I'm always slightly envious of people who become extremely rich without anyone knowing who the hell they are, like financiers.
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 don't meet stockbrokers or carpenters or coal miners; I spend all day with actors, composers and photographers.
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.
One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow.
To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative.
My wife, my daughters, even my grandchildren are funny. You've got to keep a sense of humor because anger destroys you.
I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work.
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've always loved reprehensible people because they're so much more interesting to play on screen.
To me, 'Educating Rita' is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.
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.
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.
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 try to make everyone around me feel comfortable.
You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot.
I don't think you retire from movies; movies retire you.
Every time you get a movie, you get a medical. So you know, you know you're alright for a couple of weeks.
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.
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.
What a lot of people don't realize about gangs, in my opinion, is that a gang is not there to attack you. Eighty percent of the people in a gang are there to stop anyone from attacking them. You join a gang for protection, not to go out and hit someone.
My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else.
I usually control the environment I'm in, but my control is very quiet and subtle.
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.
I just love to go home, no matter where I am, the most luxurious hotel suite in the world, I love to go home.
I regard the theater as a woman I loved dearly who treated me like dirt.
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.
I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, 'Educating Rita.'
I come from the slums; I come from a hard background; I come from a poor family; and I was a soldier.
Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.
You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.
I'm trying to work only with established, respected directors. I took a lot of bad scripts and worked for a lot of lazy directors, and it was discouraging to go to the screenings and see that the director had added nothing, the editor had added nothing, there was nothing to see.
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.
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.
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 do it often, but I do cry. I also laugh a lot; people tell me I'm funny and I do like to laugh.
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.
