Michael Caine: Well it’s quite weird because, you see, there’s no such thing as an American accent, there’s about 50 of them. You know, and I did a movie, The Cider House Rules. My dialogue coach said, “Do an American accent.” So I did it and he said, “That’s California.” He said, “It’s very good but you’re playing New England.” So I learned New England which has more English in it, you know what I mean. And I did it, and I got wonderful reviews for my accent in New England. I won an Academy Award for the part. And the British critics — because of the English it was in — they said, “Michael Caine can’t do an American accent.”
But I went in, I did another one. I did a Texas accent in a movie. I forget the title now. Kids love it, my grandchildren love this movie, anyway. I did a Texas accent, and on the first day I said, talking to the coach, he said, “Well, let me explain a Texas accent to you.” He said, “All the words lean on each other.” And of course, I knew immediately what… everybody talks like that and it just leans on each other. It’s quite amazing how clever they are at doing these things.