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But don't get too worried. He admits he has been toying with the idea for decades.
"I've thought of retiring for 30 years now," the 72-year-old Hollywood legend told a press conference yesterday at the 56th Cannes Film Festival, where his murky police thriller Mystic River played in competition last night.
The morally conflicted film tells what happens when a Massachusetts police detective investigates the brutal murder of the 19-year-old daughter of a criminal who was one of his best friends from childhood. A third childhood friend, the emotionally fragile victim of horrific sexual abuse as an 11-year-old, is a suspect.
"When I did Play Misty For Me in 1970," Eastwood said of his directorial debut, "I said: 'Hopefully, if I pull this off, maybe I can work behind the camera occasionally.' "
Once he did direct successfully and regularly, Eastwood said he told himself: "When I look on the screen and say: 'It's time to see the end of you fella!', (then) I can step behind the camera. Every year I threaten to do that -- and here I am. So it may come sooner than you think."
What he means is that it might already have happened. Eastwood has not worked as an actor for a director other than himself for 13 years. So he relies on himself for screen work.
Unlike his previous directorial effort, another police thriller called Blood Work (2002), Eastwood said he could not find a role for himself in Mystic River. But he joked it was because he needed to cast "some old fellows" for the parts.
"For me not to play in it? It was because I looked way too young. So I felt it needed some old fellows," he said turning to Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon, who shared the Cannes podium with him yesterday. He was also referring to Sean Penn and Laurence Fishburne, who play the other male leads. Neither was here yesterday, Penn because he is working on another film, Fishburne because he has already done the Cannes scene last week with The Matrix Reloaded.
"No, there was no role for my age in the film," Eastwood, who turns 73 next Saturday, said more seriously, "and it was much more pleasant for me to watch younger players work and to stay back there (behind the camera)."
Eastwood noted that movies run in fads, and right now the fad is comic-book superhero movies, which do not generate roles for him. "I don't look good in tights," he said.
Nor does he want to direct fad flicks, as much as he enjoys watching adventure stories. "I still like to think there is an audience there for serious adult stories and I may be proven wrong, but I like to try. I'm too old to make comic books."
At Cannes, Mystic River is thought to be in the running for the Palme d'Or as best film, or at least some other major award. Eastwood, who has been in competition three times before and has never won any awards, was the president of the Cannes filmfest jury one year.
Yesterday, Eastwood just shrugged off suggestions Mystic River has a winning chance tomorrow to win the Palme d'Or, although he grinned knowingly when he was asked: "Clint, do you feel lucky," a nod to a Dirty Harry moment. "I don't know," Eastwood said. "That's all in the hands of fate."
More important to him, Eastwood said, is that he feels welcome in Cannes, where he is revered and often called "Cleeent" (some overeager European media gave him a standing ovation when he entered the press conference).
"I thought it would be a very nice film to run here. And it's got one of the best ensemble casts that I've ever had the pleasure of working with. So I thought, why not?"
One U.S. questioner tried to goad Eastwood into talking about strained Franco-American relations over the Iraq war, tying that into a reduced U.S. presence at Cannes 2003.
"We came here because we wanted to," Eastwood said. "The French people have been very kind to me over the years and I feel very strong about them too ... It's great to be back, thank you."
BEANTOWN WON OVER HOGTOWN
Clint Eastwood refused to shoot his new police thriller Mystic River in Toronto, but it was not because he has anything against Canada, he said yesterday.
Asked why he insisted on shooting on location in Boston -- where the murder story is set but where few films are shot -- Eastwood was about to answer when co-star Tim Robbins jumped in at a Mystic River press conference:
"Thank you, Clint!" Robbins said, clapping. "We love Canada but we're so-o-o-o-o tired of going there -- sorry."
Then Eastwood picked up the mantra: "It was suggested to go look at Toronto (because it would mean a lower budget). But I thought, to go to Canada and start manipulating things around to be Boston would take more time, and it would be better just to be in Boston. Plus there'd be no Mystic River there. You'd have to get some other river." Key scenes are shot on the banks of the river.
"I've done films in Canada," Eastwood said. "I did Unforgiven in Canada. It's beautiful and Canada's part of the great wide-open west. It worked great for that film. But, for this film Boston is it."