Michael Caine Quotes about Acting

My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.

When you reach the top, that's when the climb begins.

Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ....not waiting to deliver your lines.

To be a movie star, you have to invent yourself.

When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best.

You're your first best audience, long before anybody else hears you. So don't be an easy audience. Keep asking for more.

I'm looking for me to disappear, and the acting to disappear, and all you see is a real person.

In film, other actors' performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn't giving you what you want, act as though he were.

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.

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.

Theater acting is an operation with a scalpel, movie acting is an operation with a laser

You've got to be flexible. Directors do a massive amount of planning and homework, and if after all that your director decides to throw it all out of the window and shoot spontaneously, then you must follow his lead.

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.

I'm a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.

Not only is acting more than a part-time job, it's more than a full-time job. It's a full-time obsession.

I'm the audience's representative on earth.

That to me is what my idea of film acting should be. There shouldn't be any acting. You should just be watching a real person.

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

You must always steal, but only from the best people. Steal any trick that looks worthwhile. If you see Vivien Leigh or Robert DeNiro or Meryl Streep do something stunningly effective, and you can analyze how he or she did it, then pinch it. Because you can be sure that they stole it in the first place.

You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot.

No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone.