James Caan
American, Actor
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- "There's a big difference between wanting to work and having to work. And I had to learn that the hard way. Now money is very important to me, because I ain't got it." - James Caan
- Some guys say beauty is only skin deep. But when you walk into a party, you don't see somebody's brain. The initial contact has to be the sniffing.
- My acting technique is to look up at God just before the camera rolls and say, 'Give me a break.'
- (on fans confusing him with his characters) Look, you only pray when you start in this business that you get to the point where people recognize you or quote you. I mean, I've got a lot of people who are like, "Hey, your ankle OK?" from Misery (1990). I get that a lot. It's harmless. Or they'll say, "Hey, don't go through that toll booth again" or "Have the right change". That's great! First of all, it means that they remember the picture. There's nothing not to like about it . . . No, I hope they never stop.
- One night I went over to get some dope from some Hollywood tough guy. After I left, my son Scott, who was only fifteen, went over with a baseball bat to kill him. I was laughing out of one eye and crying out of the other. I thought, Who am I kidding?
- Will is extremely funny. The tights, though, they were a little vulgar. I just looked at the tights and there's nothing funny about them!
- I always thought of myself as some sort of athlete until I started playing golf a couple years ago.
- There are a lot of guys in Hollywood who clap you on the back just a little too hard.
- (on actors taking themselves too seriously) The truth is . . . myself, De Niro (Robert De Niro), Pacino (Al Pacino), Hoffman (Dustin Hoffman), we were arrogant, pompous asses.
- (His advice to younger actors) The main pearl of wisdom I give these young kids is that you shouldn't make your career your whole life. No matter what heights you achieve, even if you're Brad Pitt, the slide is coming, sure as death and taxes. So if you put everything into that one basket - acting - you'll wind up hurting yourself, either with drugs or any other self-destructive thing you can think of.
- To get over my divorce, I got a prescription to live at the Playboy Mansion for a while.
- It's a very charming movie about the mob - a real stretch for me.
- I'm here instead of having shoulder surgery. But I'm not sure which is more painful.
- If it was up to them, I'd be playing Sonny Corleone my entire life. Usually, if there weren't eight people dead by page 11, they wouldn't send me the script. People say, "Gee, you do a lot of mafia movies". I think I've done two, out of 60.
- Actors have bodyguards and entourages not because anybody wants to hurt them - who would want to hurt an actor? - but because they want to get recognized. God forbid someone doesn't recognize them.
- I did this picture last year with Nicole Kidman and Lars von Trier, Dogville (2003), and it's supposed to be a trilogy, but now that she's walked away from it, I'm walking from it. He is very anti-American, so screw him. I'm very pro-America. I'm a conservative, basically.
- (on being confused with his character from The Godfather (1972)) I'll bump into a guy in a bar, and he'll say, "I'm sorry, Sonny!" It's surreal.
- Showing up every day isn't enough. There are a lot of guys who show up every day who shouldn't have showed up at all.
- What's the difference between sex and love? I have four wives and five kids. I apparently don't know the difference.
- You know those actors who say, "I want to be alone" or they're walking around with their friggin' bodyguards? A bodyguard! I'd never have a bodyguard. I mean, who wants to hurt me? But the point is that they have the bodyguard so that they can say, "Leave me alone!" It's this revolving door thing. If somebody didn't recognize them, they'd have a heart attack, the bastards.
- I never did anything else. In college I switched majors every two weeks and acting was the only thing that held my interest. The reason I started was to stay away from the meat market. That's where I was headed -- to be with the guys who lug beef all day long.
- You have to be very careful when you let someone win.
- Quite often I'm misunderstood when I say, 'It's not my life, it's my job.' People think that means I don't give a shit. Sure, I want to be the best actor in the world. But my life is my family, my son, my friends. I don't know how anyone can find fault with that. For some reason when you say, 'It's my job' it sounds like 'Who gives a shit?' Well, that's not it at all. What I do quite honestly and seriously and not in any way being humble is not as important as what the garbage collector does. People make actors important. I go to the movies, I stand on line minding my own business and the manager goes, 'Mr. Caan, Mr. Caan.' And I say, 'No, no, no, I'm OK. I'll stand on the line.' 'Oh, you can't.' So, finally they take you through the line and the other 40 people go, 'Hey, Mr. Bigshot.' And I was just minding my own business, I just wanted to stand there. But other people make it very important that I'm an actor.
- I've been lucky. The critics never went out of their way to single me out for doing bad work.