Michael Caine has said that he considers himself to be a movie actor rather than a movie star.
The 80-year-old actor told NPR that the types of roles he has been offered have changed dramatically through the course of his career.
He explained: "If you're a movie star, you get the girl, you lose the girl, and then you get her back.
"But if you're a character like me, you lose the girl, then you get another one, then you get another one, then you lose them all, then you lose your life. It's all very different. And it's fascinating for me."
He continued: "It's [being] a movie actor, as opposed to movie star. And I remember when it happened to me. A producer sent me a script, and I sent it back and said, 'The part's too small. I don't want to play it'.
"And he sent it back and said, 'I didn't want you to play the lover; I wanted you to play the father'. And I thought, oh my god. I rushed in the bathroom, had a look in the mirror, and there wasn't the lover looking at me: There was the father."
Caine, who has won two Academy Awards for The Cider House Rules and Hannah and Her Sisters, also revealed which three films out of his career he would like to be remembered for.
He said: "I'd pick Dirty Rotten Scoundrels [as my favourite] because it was the funniest. I'd pick Educating Rita because it was the farthest away from me - I'm playing a university professor. I'd pick Alfie, which made me a star and got me my first Academy Award nomination.
"Some people would have said The Man Who Would Be King and things like that, or Get Carter, Sleuth with Larry [Laurence] Olivier - I mean, there were a lot of them. But these were the three."
