110+ Michael Caine Quotes On Acting, Charismatic And Iconic

Michael Caine is an English actor who has appeared in over 130 films. He is known for his distinctive Cockney accent and has won two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles in Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules. He is also known for his performances in films such as The Italian Job, Alfie, and The Dark Knight Trilogy. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Michael Caine on acting, charismatic, iconic.

Top 10 Michael Caine Quotes

1. Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.
2. ...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
3. Some men just want to watch the world burn
4. I've always got to have one impossible dream on the back burner.
5. The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought: "That's what I want to do."
6. No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone.
7. I'm looking for me to disappear, and the acting to disappear, and all you see is a real person.
8. 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.
9. If you're a movie actor, you're on your own - you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.
10. 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.

Michael Caine Short Quotes

• For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.
• Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day.
• I don't have any regrets because I'm very optimistic, and live each day as though it's the last.
• The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.
• I've never been out with a married woman, never. I respect others' properties.
• Obsession is a young man’s game.
• Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
• My view is that you should always remake failures because then you've got nowhere to go but up.
• There is no point in competing with young talent...I just concentrate on getting better each day.
• Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.

Michael Caine Quotes About Acting

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. — Michael Caine

Theater acting is an operation with a scalpel, movie acting is an operation with a laser — Michael Caine

If you really want to become an actor, but only providing that acting doesn't interfere with your golf game, political ambitions and your life, you don't want to become an actor. Not only is acting more than a part time job, it's more than a full time job. It's a full time obsession. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

Not only is acting more than a part-time job, it's more than a full-time job. It's a full-time obsession. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses. — Michael Caine

If you're an actor and you don't act for a long time you sort of think, I wonder if I can still do it. — Michael Caine

You're your first best audience, long before anybody else hears you. So don't be an easy audience. Keep asking for more. — Michael Caine

Michael Caine Quotes About Listen

Movie actors earn their living and learn their craft through listening and reacting. — Michael Caine

I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got. — Michael Caine

The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly --because if they don't speak fast nobody will listen to them. — Michael Caine

Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ....not waiting to deliver your lines. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

Michael Caine Famous Quotes And Sayings

I never look back at all. All of my sentiment and emotion goes into my family. I'm an extremely family oriented person and I have a very, very happy family life. That doesn't just include blood relations. I have friends who are close to me. — Michael Caine

I've been acting a long time, and I can play a Cockney gangster or a womanizer in my sleep or standing on my head. But what I try to do is I try to find characters that are as far away from me as I possibly can and then make them real. A French Nazi is about as far away from me as I can possibly get without actually going to Mars or something. — Michael Caine

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. — 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. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

What a lot of people dont 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. — Michael Caine

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

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

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. — Michael Caine

I'm always slightly envious of people who become extremely rich without anyone knowing who the hell they are, like financiers. — Michael Caine

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. And you can never get in there. So you must have two bathrooms. You really must. I think it's essential. — Michael Caine

About Superman and Batman: the former is how America views itself, the latter, darker character is how the rest of the world views America. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

A man's body may grow old, but inside his spirit can still be as young and as restless as ever. — Michael Caine

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

For Cider House Rules, I was doing a New England accent. — Michael Caine

If you're blond, as I am, and you have blond lashes, you have to wear mascara, otherwise you're invisible on stage. — Michael Caine

Hey, I always say: if you want a quiet life, become a monk. — Michael Caine

Just because I have made a point of never losing my accent it doesn't mean I'm an eel-and-pie yob. — Michael Caine

I love the start of autumn when the trees in my garden change the colour of their leaves in one last dazzling display. — Michael Caine

Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. — Michael Caine

I wear a baseball cap all the time, which I would never normally wear, and I walk very fast. — Michael Caine

I'm not in the Lifetime Achievement area yet-I'm still battling it out in the trenches. — Michael Caine

My career is going better now than when I was younger. Now I get the part. Back then, I'd get the girl. — Michael Caine

I feel that I helped the working class by just saying there are no barriers, which I consider to be true. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write, and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. — Michael Caine

I'd never been in one of those great big blockbusters. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

They use those monitors now, and sometimes you'll be doing a shot and then suddenly you see yourself on one of those monitors, and I always say turn the monitor round, I don't want to see myself on the monitor. I never see myself 'til the movie's finished. — Michael Caine

God willing, even I might scrape a nomination. — Michael Caine

I usually control the environment I'm in, but my control is very quiet and subtle. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I didn't want to come in the movie every so often, every 20 minutes saying, 'Dinner is served, would you like coffee?' — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I've been in every disco in the world. I saw a picture of my wife Shakira and I dancing in Studio 54; I didn't even know someone had taken that picture. — Michael Caine

I don't like getting up early in the morning and learning all that stuff. I work with offers that I can't refuse. — Michael Caine

My father was a fish market porter. So I grew up on fish, because he used to steal one a day, I grew up on the very best fish that money could buy, 'cause he only stole the good stuff. — Michael Caine

It's vital to have your own space so you aren't constantly in each other's pockets. — Michael Caine

My wife, my daughters, even my grandchildren are funny. You've got to keep a sense of humor because anger destroys you. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I'm not tough anymore, I'm 82. — Michael Caine

I don't think human beings are bad. They're weak. And that's what makes 'em bad. — Michael Caine

A man should dress in a way that you don't notice. He looks good and you don't know why. But it's the tailoring, the materials, and the clothes. — Michael Caine

One of the great things with comedy is that there's no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it's either uproarious or crap. That's the problem. — Michael Caine

I'm doing the next Batman. I have to become obsessed about what is offered to me. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I'm very, very family oriented. I'm a big cook and a good connoisseur and I only drink very good red wines now. — Michael Caine

How can I change me to suit the script? — Michael Caine

People say to me, why did you do those films, and I say, for money. It wasn't for diamond rings or kidney shaped swimming pools in Beverly Hills, it was in order to improve the lot of everyone around me. — Michael Caine

I always say to my wife, don't tell anyone I watch this [shows like The X Factor and Pop Idol], but it fascinates me because I've done so many auditions and been knocked back. — Michael Caine

By the time the Oscars are on I'll be seventy. How many more chances am I going to have to get nominated for an Oscar? — Michael Caine

One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

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 am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, 'Educating Rita.' — Michael Caine

A lot of people said, Who do you think you are? I told them I know exactly who I am and I'll tell you exactly where I'm going. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called the Pledge. The magician shows you something ordinary. The second act is called the Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary. But you wouldn't clap yet, because making something disappear isn't enough. You have to bring it back. — Michael Caine

In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it. — Michael Caine

I didn't know what I knew. I wasn't aware of what I knew. — Michael Caine

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

Ive read an awful lot of books, Ive read alot of awful books — Michael Caine

I was so poor for so long that I didn't use anything. I didn't drive cars, I didn't eat very much. So, I figured the world owed me a debt, so I've been eating very well and have had a very big car for a long time. But I still haven't caught up with my youth. — Michael Caine

You start pretending to have fun, you might have a little by accident. — Michael Caine

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. — Michael Caine

I don't think you retire from movies; movies retire you. — Michael Caine

I always exposed the weakness rather than the nastiness. — Michael Caine

I spent 30 years of my life not being wanted at all for films. — Michael Caine

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar. — Michael Caine

80 percent of any gang is not there to attack someone. They're there so no one will attack them. — Michael Caine

I don't see myself as anything. I just wander around getting on with my life. — Michael Caine

It’s a lesson in life—don’t look back, you’ll trip over. — Michael Caine

The trouble with women? Elbows. — Michael Caine

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

Life Lessons by Michael Caine

1. Michael Caine has taught us that hard work and determination are key to achieving success. He has also reminded us to stay humble and never forget our roots. Lastly, he has demonstrated that it is possible to reinvent yourself and make a name for yourself in any field.