Robert De Niro doesn't want a strike

So relaxed seems the famously curmudgeonly actor that he is even prepared to answer questions about one of the more sordid bits of recent gossip concerning him: an anonymous email which followed his departure this spring from his long-time Hollywood agency CAA.

We're in the realm of hearsay here, since few people have actually seen the email in question, reportedly sent by a resentful CAA staffer. But the gist of its contents have spread across the blogosphere like oil from the Exxon Valdez: that De Niro was a (expletive deleted) who thought he was too good for an agency that had rescued him from the career toilet with a series of high-grossing (and highly-paid) comedies such as the Analyze films and the two Fockers flicks. What was more, if De Niro really believed that anyone, let alone younger audiences, cared about him in serious roles any more, he was in for a shock.

De Niro winces almost imperceptibly when the affair is mentioned. "There are certain facts about it that are just inaccurate," he says carefully. "I don't know what to say. I hate to think the email came from someone at CAA, because I felt it was beneath them. It's like an obscene telephone call," he shrugs. "You just don't know where it comes from."

He does, however, concede that his latest film - the Barry Levinson-directed What Just Happened?, a Hollywoodon-

Hollywood comedy, starring and produced by De Niro, with cameos by Sean Penn and a hilariously hirsute Bruce Willis - has received a disappointing response. "But there's nothing wrong with it," he insists of the film, which opened Karlovy Vary. "There's nothing where I'd say, 'You need to take that out.' I mean, it could be this way, it could be that way, sure. But there's nothing wrong with it."

As far as Hollyood terms go, however, there doesn't seem to be anything much right with it, either. What Just Happened? is beginning to look like a turkey, and a costly one at that, given its $25 million budget and all-star cast, Big Orphan Annie. The movie premiered in Sundance as the hottest-ticket independent film of this year's festival but left without a distribution deal. It closed Cannes, probably because De Niro was prepared to show up to support it (Penn, being president of the Cannes Jury, was already there), but again failed to find a distributor.

Last month, well-heeled production company 2929 Productions finally announced it was going to distribute the film in North America itself, which is tantamount to an admission of defeat.

What Just Happened? is not a bad film, but it is certainly a bit of a mess. And De Niro's assertion that they're still trying to get it right - ironic, given that the film itself hinges on a test screening that goes badly wrong - doesn't convince.

"It was always kind of a work-inprogress and Barry Levinson was trying to work certain things," he claims. But the professional in him bridles at the accusation that he may occasionally be "difficult" as an actor. Acting, he says, is a job that requires you to show up, speak your lines and earn your paycheck.

"You can have integrity and not necessarily be difficult," he insists. "There's a difference. I don't like it when an actor is temperamental. The point is that everybody has got their own, as I say, meschugga, their own craziness. And when you do a movie, everybody should leave their personal problems at home. It's difficult enough to make a movie as it is; you don't need extra drama to get it into the can."

Which pretty much sums up Robert De Niro the actor: leave me to do my job, which is getting movies in the can. And enough meschugga already with your strikes, your emails, your interviews and your intrusive personal questions.

What Just Happened? is released on 10 October.