• The Rolling Stones Onstage, 1964-2007: A Photo History
• Video: Behind the Scenes at the Rolling Stones/Jack White Cover Shoot

In your mind, what's the difference between the Stones we see in this movie versus the Stones in, say, 1972?
Much older [laughs]! I'm still singing the same old songs, you know. It's just a more matured style of playing, with maybe some of the more extravagant edges taken out. You know, the band — they were very inconsistent back then. They would do a fantastic show one night, fucking raise the roof and be amazing, and the next night they would do a terrible show, where the tempos are wildly wrong — too fast, too slow, terrible train wrecks and awful mistakes. Now it's a much more consistent-playing group.

Looking at old footage, you appear to be even more physically frenetic onstage now than in the old days. How can that be?
The problem for me is that you need a certain amount of physicality and oxygen and fitness just to sing. So if you use too much up dancing, you got nothing to sing with. I'll err on the side of the physicality, and I let the singing down. So I can't make the notes some nights. I've overdone the physicality.

How did you feel looking at the long, intense close-ups on you in the movie?
It was a little bit too much, I felt. But directors always like to use slow numbers to have these lingering shots. Yeah, I didn't care for it too much. Boring. It didn't look very good.

Your performance of "Far Away Eyes" is really campy and funny in the movie — it's a reminder of how much acting there can be in your singing.
All of these songs have characters. They're all different. That's the thing about the Stones, they have lots of other kind of facets which make them kind of interesting. They're not really stuck in classic-rock mode.

If you were forced to define that particular character . . .
Oh, God, don't force me [laughs]! Don't force me to intellectualize it. I just do the characters. I've done a couple of songs — even very early, on those songs like "Dear Doctor" and all that — they're that sort of character. I have an affinity with that country thing, I think.

Is it always a character in your songs?
Oh, no. Sometimes it's closer to your own persona. See, I don't know how this works for other singers. The thing about rock & roll is people expect it to be real, sincere and heartfelt, or something — it's not supposed to be manufactured. Pop music is allowed to be silly and saccharine, and nobody minds as long as they like the tune. Rock music's got its own set of conventions, but then you got to sort of break out of that because otherwise you're stuck in this thing, this one character.

Buddy Guy was really up in your face as you're playing blues harp, but you don't seem intimidated.
I'm not intimidated. I might have been when I was twenty. Well, not even then.

Is there anyone who could intimidate you onstage at this point?
No [laughs].

What are the first movies that you remember responding to as a kid?
My mum used to love musicals, so she'd take me to all these musicals, which is a form I never liked. She loved Doris Day. Judy Garland. So I had to be dragged to these movies.