Michael Caine

Sir Michael Caine in 2015

Sir Michael Caine CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor. Known for his Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films in a career spanning seven decades and is considered a British film icon. He has received many awards including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. As of 2017, the films in which Caine has appeared have grossed over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in five different decades. In 2000, he received a BAFTA Fellowship and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to cinema.

Quotes

• My worst roles have been in movies I made solely for the money — like Jaws – The Revenge.
  I was offered a small part in a fourth of the 'big shark' movies at a tremendous fee, and I took it.
  I have never seen the film, but by all accounts, it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it's terrific.
  • Interview in Cosmopolitan, cited in ""Performers recall the worst parts they ever played"" The Salina Journal (Kansas, 4 December 1994), p.16
  • Syndicated article from the Associated Press.

• I was named after my father and I was knighted in his name because I love my father. I always kept my real name - I'm a very private and family-orientated person.
• "My name is Sir Maurice" or "My name is Sir Michael"?
• I'm both, but I will use Sir Michael Caine.
  • "My name is still Michael Caine, says man dubbed 'Sir Maurice'"The Independent (17 November 2000)
  • Explaining why he was knighted under his real name as Sir Maurice Micklewhite CBE.

• [On his father, Maurice Micklewhite Snr, a soldier during World War II] He liberated the Pope.
• [On his National Service] And then when I was 19 they sent me to Korea – which was not a very nice idea for your 19th birthday. I wasn't a big professional soldier, and it wasn't a big war.
  The Korean War was like the First World War, we all lived in trenches and fought each other in the dark; but I was still s—t scared, as everybody else was. So I understood those things – death and close friends dying and getting injured.
• [On assuming he would never be a star] Because I thought you had to be very handsome and all that – kissing the girls and everything – and I wasn't like that when I was young. I was an ugly, skinny bastard.
• [On his 50-year long marriage to his wife Shakira] [W]e went to Vegas for my 40th birthday, and we got married. It was where a lot of famous people had got married, because there were pictures of all of them on the wall. I was looking round thinking, f—g hell, I’m getting married where whatisname got married, and so-and-so.
  And then, at the end, I looked round, and realised every single person on the wall had got divorced. I thought, oh s—t, this isn't going to last long, then.
  • "Michael Caine interview: ‘Everybody’s going to die – at least I've lived to f---ing 90’", The Telegraph (19 September 2023)

• But I'm 90. I don't worry about the future. I worry if I'm gonna make it to lunch.
• I'm very lucky the whole face has not collapsed.
  • "'I’m 90. I worry if I’m gonna make it to lunch': Michael Caine and John Standing on wives, war and feeling like the Queen", The Guardian (29 September 2023)

• I keep saying I'm going to retire. Well I am now.
  • On Today (BBC Radio 4), as cited in "Michael Caine confirms his retirement from acting", The Times (14 October 2023)

Misattributed

• "Not many people know that."
  • Peter Sellers said this whilst doing an impression of Caine and the actor has become associated with the quote despite not having said it in the first place.[1]

Quotes about Michael Caine

• I had to go off on my own. So, okay, I haven’t got Michael Caine, I’d better get Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Kenneth Branagh, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Cillian Murphy, Tom Conti, and hoped that all those greats would add up to one Michael Caine.
  • Christopher Nolan, as quoted by Jabed Ahmed, "Christopher Nolan explains why Michael Caine wasn’t in Oppenheimer", The Independent (15 February 2024).