The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.

I was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Imagine signing that autograph! You'd get a broken arm. So I changed my name to Michael Caine after Humphrey Bogart's 'The Caine Mutiny,' which was playing in the theater across from the telephone booth where I learned that I'd gotten my first TV job.

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.

I feel that I helped the working class by just saying there are no barriers, which I consider to be true.

If you really want to become an actor, but only providing that acting doesn't interfere with your golf game, political ambitions and your life, you don't want to become an actor. Not only is acting more than a part time job, it's more than a full time job. It's a full time obsession.

The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly - because if they don't speak fast enough, nobody will listen to them.

If I work with a bad actor, my reaction is to immediately become worse than they are.