Jack Nicholson is to retire after 60 years onscreen

Speaking to The Sun newspaper at a Bafta Tea Party event in Los Angeles, he said: "I think he is ¬basically retired. I don’t want to speak for him but he has done a lot of work and he has done very well as a person financially.

"Sometimes ¬people have a reason that you don’t know, and it’s not for me to ask. I don’t call him up and say, 'Johnny,' I call him Johnny Hop, 'What are you doing?' I would say, 'How are you, how do you feel?'"

Throughout his illustrious career, the 79-year-old actor was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning three. He also won seven Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1999 for his outstanding contribution to film.

Meanwhile, Jack previously admitted he feels ageing has helped him make "improvements in his character".

He said: "If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women. There were points in my life where I felt oddly irresistible to women. I’m not in that state now and that makes me sad.

"But I also believe that a lot of the improvements in my character have come through ageing and the diminishing of powers. It’s all a balancing act; you just have to get used to the ride."

And Jack hates how his job thrusts him into the spotlight as he doesn't want to be treated like the "Lincoln Memorial".

Speaking in 2011, he added: "I hate it. I don’t want to be treated like the Medusa or the Lincoln Memorial. People have an idea of me which is not the reality. On set I’m an actor like every other actor.

"Most times, for every part I play, I can think of other actors who would be better. I worry from the moment I take a job. I worry about how I’m going to do it, if I can do it. I try to work out what I have to do on set and how I do that."