Actor

To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative.

If you think you're going to be up for an Oscar, you schedule your moviemaking.

I've always loved reprehensible people because they're so much more interesting to play on screen.

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.

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.

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

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out.

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