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"How do I think being a playboy's different than being a rock star?" laughs Jagger, repeating a Japanese reporter's unusual question. "There aren't any playboys anymore. They don't exist anymore. It's rather sad, really. They all wrapped themselves around trees in badly driven sports cars 20 years ago."
All kidding aside, though, the 61-year-old rock legend insists he has little in common with the womanizing hedonist of Alfie -- or the promiscuous pop star he's portrayed as.
"I've always been a very sort of career-minded person," he explains, "and any vague resemblance of my life to a playboy's is merely coincidental."
Sure, Mick. Whatever you say. We're sure Marianne Faithfull, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall, Margaret Trudeau and thousands of other women would agree.
But even if Jagger doesn't see himself in Alfie, he seems like the only logical choice to provide the soundtrack for the new remake featuring Jude Law as a cheerfully cold-hearted ladykiller.
Only Sir Mick wasn't such an obvious choice to director Charles Shyer.
"Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics) said to me early on that Mick should replace Sonny Rollins, who did the original saxophone score," says Shyer. "I love Mick Jagger and I love The Rolling Stones, but I was worried that he's such a strong force that the minute you hear his voice, you are going to be taken out of the movie."
After Shyer heard the songs Jagger and Stewart had written, however, he quickly changed his tune.
"As soon as I heard the one line they wrote -- 'You won't let the love in' -- I knew. That was the movie; he just captured the whole vibe so well."
Not bad for a guy who says he was never a big fan of the 1966 Michael Caine classic.
"To be honest, the original movie of Alfie, I saw it at the time but I don't really recall an awful lot of it," says Jagger.
Even so, he and former Eurythmics member Stewart put an awful lot into the project. Over the course of a year, the pair collaborated on the score, penning a handful of songs -- including the single Old Habits Die Hard and Blind Leading the Blind, which features that line Shyer loves -- along with much of the incidental music for the film. While Jagger takes the lead on several songs, he lets teenage soul phenom Joss Stone handle the Burt Bacharach title cut originally sung by Cher.
"It's a very complicated song, Alfie. All I could remember was the first line. But, actually, when you hear it, it's very convoluted and goes all over the place. I'm glad I didn't have to do it," he laughed.
With that out of the way, Jagger is on to the next order of business -- gearing up for a new Rolling Stones studio disc -- their first since 1997's Bridges to Babylon.
"Keith (Richards) and I have been writing new material for the Stones' next album," Jagger says. "I just spent two weeks writing songs with Keith."
He also revealed that Stones drummer Charlie Watts has apparently beaten the throat cancer that he was treated for earlier this year.
"Charlie is a lot better. He's had all his treatments and he's been pronounced free and clear of everything, so we're very pleased about that."
Jagger said he had no idea when the band would take to the road again -- "I suspect we'll do the album and then we'll do the tour" -- but in the meantime, Stones fans can tide themselves over with the just-released concert album Live Licks and a DVD of their legendary Rock and Roll Circus TV special.