Quotes By Michael Caine

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 prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

As an actor, I'll play anything.

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.

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

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

If you go away on location for three months and your wife stays at home, you've made a whole new load of friends and she's made a whole new load of friends and you get home and you're kind of strangers.

English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.

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.

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.

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

I'm the audience's representative on earth.

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

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

Save your money. You're going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.

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

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.

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

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

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

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.

Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.

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.

I think what is British about me is my feelings and awareness of others and their situations. English people are always known to be well mannered and cold but we are not cold - we don't interfere in your situation. If we are heartbroken, we don't scream in your face with tears - we go home and cry on our own.

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

The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

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

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

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

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.