By MADELEINE MARR

You’d think with more than 100 movies under his belt, Michael Caine would be used to press interviews. But the star of Harry Brown, out Friday, would rather be chillaxing in Miami Beach, where he keeps a getaway pad.

“I’ve been doing a lot of promotion,” Caine says by phone from a New York hotel. “It’s mind-bendingly tiring.”

Once the movie is released, the 77-year-old Brit can go back to his blissful semiretirement: “I love Miami. You’ve got the weather of the Caribbean, but it’s still America. If it rains, there’s always something to do — cinema, book shops, dining.”

Speaking of which, the acting legend once owned a restaurant, the South Beach Brasserie on Lincoln Road (it became Touch, now All Saints).

Any plans to reboot?

“I left that business,” Caine says. “Chefs are too temperamental.”

These days, the star and wife Shakira Baksh leave cooking to the professionals, eating out at celebby spots like Prime 112, Mr. Chow and Il Gabbiano (“truly the best Italian food”).

You can’t blame him for his exhaustion. Caine’s current role — that of a lonely widower/ex-soldier turned vigilante in a dangerous London neighborhood — was pretty physical.

Though the cast — which includes Emily Mortimer as a cop — kept things light.

“Serious movies are always very funny to work on; comedy is hard,” he says. “I asked Tony Hopkins how it was working on Silence of the Lambs. He said it was a great laugh.”

What’s not so funny — Harry Brown‘s theme: “Gang violence is really going on. It’s a wake-up call to the country.”

Caine grew up near where the movie was shot — in the Newcastle area.

“It was a very tough district even then,” he says. “We used to be in gangs, but they were like Mary Poppins compared to now. We never had guns or knives.”

He hopes the film will bring some changes and doesn’t want fans to associate his character with Charles Bronson’s in Death Wish.

“Death Wish celebrated violence, Harry Brown abhors it. I played the man as a victim.”

Caine realizes he has been in more movies than most people can remember (hello Jaws 4: The Revenge), and still, scripts keep rolling in. “I do about three pictures a year. It looks like more because they all come out together.”

By now, he can afford to be choosy.

“It’s absolutely gotta be a script that I cannot refuse.”

To what does he attribute his staying power?

“I never do the same thing twice,” Caine explains. “I’m not a movie star. I’m a leading movie actor. I was always an actor. I’m used to playing different roles. I don’t get the girl — I get the part.”