Michael Caine: “It’s terrifying to have to say just one line”

An excerpt from Michael Caine’s awesome book Michael Caine – Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Movie Making.

Discipline is necessary at any level of film acting, but in some ways, small parts are the hardest. It’s terrifying to have to say just one line. I did it in about a hundred pictures. I played a police constable in The Day the Earth Caught Fire, for instance. I had to hold up the traffic, direct cars in one direction, trucks in another, and say my ONE BIG LINE. When finally I thought I knew what I was supposed to be doing, and the director obligingly said, “Action!” inevitably the police helmet came right down over my eyes! I couldn’t see where to direct the trucks and I couldn’t remember my line. The director said to me: “You will never work again.” (By the way, there are some things you never say in the movie business: that’s one of them. It usually turns out that the person who says it never works again.)