A biography for Michael Cainehasn’t been written yet.
“I wouldn't make an anti-American film. I'm one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans.”
“...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.”
“Obsession is a young man's game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.”
“Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I've been available to pick up an award.”
“I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, 'Educating Rita.'”
“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.”
“I've made the transition from star to character actor and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.”
“At 69, I got the girl! And it wasn't a 68-year-old girl, either.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The difference between a movie star and a movie actor is this - a movie star will say, 'How can I change the script to suit me?' and a movie actor will say. 'How can I change me to suit the script?'”
“You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.”
“I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.”
“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!”
“I regard the theater as a woman I loved dearly who treated me like dirt.”
“When I'm doing an accent, you shouldn't notice it for a while, if I'm doing it right.”
“Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture.”
“I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.”
“I come from the slums; I come from a hard background; I come from a poor family; and I was a soldier.”
“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.”