Michael Caine Quotes

Definitely when you get handed roles like Joel in 'The Last of Us,' that's something that will change your life, and I learned so much from that role.

I think a handful of the roles that I've gotten to play are characters whom I've lived that are like younger versions of me but who are maybe more naive and a little bit wilder than when I was. And I've gotten to play 16 and 17 when I was a little bit older, so I got to pull from experience.

I've realized over the years I either play very good people or very bad people, and I think I always enjoy the very bad people more.

The protagonists that I've played tend to be people who make trouble. Or even if they don't make it, they certainly disrupt things. It's fun to do that in life as well. But I don't think I ever played myself.

There was a little of this, 'Oh, you're such a sweet girl!' That's a wonderful thing to have in life; I don't mind it at all for life. But I remember, the first role I was ever cast in as a not-so-sweet-girl, I was so happy.

Every actor, I don't care what they say, their roles are a lot more interesting than we are, and at the end of the day, it's still entertainment or fantasy. I think we can learn a lot from the characters we play and I find that the characters are even more noble than myself.

It's been liberating to be able to play someone who's a bada– or promiscuous, because that's the opposite of who I am … It's like a drug.

When children ask me what's my favorite [role], I say to them, "Imagine having ten beautiful new puppies in a basket and you had to say which one is your favorite, and you simply couldn't because you love them all for different reasons." POPPINS was such a learning experience, as was THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I tell you, every one of them just helped me grow in what I do and did and each one was such a phenomenal working experience.

When I opened up in "Gaslight," for instance, playing that narky maid, that all came about from my experience and my training up to that point, and so nothing was wasted.

Sometimes they come to you and it's a small role, so it's about the experience and the journey and mixing with people you know you will learn from. Or sometimes it's a scene in a movie that you think, 'I just have to play this person.'

When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. See what happens when you "know it all", at any stage of life? Farther down the track you may see clearly how certain personal opinions, held onto too tightly, could be fogging up the view, and providing incorrect insight. Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

From that point of view, I realized that my hole was not miles deep after all. My father, in fact, could stand on the bottom and it only reached up to his chest. Darkness, you know, is relative.

This is not the 19th century, where actors are expected to play completely opposite roles. We're not typecast, but we're brought in because somebody thinks that it's a good fit, so you make it a better fit.

Sophia Loren plays peasants. I play ladies.

In 22 years of acting, I've only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I'd give it back and say, 'Take this s**t out of my hands!' There were laughing, like they couldn't believe I was supposed to be the villain.

I did a film that was similar to that world, which was Brotherly Love, and the audience fell in love with [my character] June. So to be honest, I remembered what I did in that movie and studied that film and my mannerisms while shooting in Philly.

I realized that here's a moment for me to learn so until I learn and understand more about how types of films are done - action, sci-fi - even though I have a desire to do it, I won't go into it until I'm very clear that I can do it and that moment hasn't come yet. Maybe one day I will ready, but for now, I just enjoyed playing the character.

I am drawn to roles that are strong, intelligent, and a little edgy. With Complications, I navigate my character Samantha Ellison through some really emotionally challenging times.

I've been playing these schoolgirl roles in all my movies. Every time I went to the set, it felt like I was going to school.

If you're going to play a woman, you might as well play a woman that you liked, and someone sexy.

I played the mom in Spy Kids when I was, like, 27. So it was ridiculous. But [Robert Rodriguez] was like, "You know what? If we do our job right, no one will question it." And nobody did.

Being an actor opened doors for me to explore my emotions as different people and characters, and expand my own inner soul.

I was happy that I finally could play a mature woman, because I started working when I was a teenager and was always playing characters according to my age.

I consider myself a character actress, and that's working out. I'm getting chances to do things. I like the process - I don't want to pretend I'm something other than what I am.

I was up at Big Sur with Christopher Reeve and Christine Lahti, doing this woman in a big fat-suit - Mrs. Bassett in Tennessee Williams' Summer And Smoke - and my husband was in the show too, playing Lahti's fiancée. Every night he'd be proposing to beautiful Christine Lahti, and I'd barrel onstage in this fat-suit. I hated it! But I did it, because by then I knew that that was my casting.