I’m always slightly envious of people who become extremely rich without anyone knowing who the hell they are, like financiers. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
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. – 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
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
There’s quite a lot of bad stuff written about me. My wife even says a lot of bad stuff about me. But she is wonderful. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
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. – 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
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. – Michael Caine
I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I’m my own most vicious critic. So I’m always trying to do it better. – Michael Caine
I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop. – Michael Caine
I don’t meet stockbrokers or carpenters or coal miners; I spend all day with actors, composers and photographers. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
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! – Michael Caine
Things are not quite what they seem always. Don’t start me on class, otherwise you’ll get a four-hour lecture. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much. – 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
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. – Michael Caine
I’m forever testing myself. As a person and as an actor, I have no sense of competition. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
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. – Michael Caine
Every time you get a movie, you get a medical. So you know, you know you’re alright for a couple of weeks. – Michael Caine