Watch out boys (and Michael Douglas): Catherine Zeta-Jones might look sexy and svelte now, but she says her sexiest days are yet to come.

At a news conference in Sydney for her new film Death Defying Acts, the Oscar-winning brunette beauty, 38, assured her fans that although her role in this movie is motherly, she won’t shy away from sexier roles in the future.

But her role as real-life mom is clearly important to the screen siren, who added, “I am a mother so I’m not going to be rip-roaring in corsets playing a 19-year-old because I’m not. I’m 38 years old.”

She also asked reporters during the news conference, “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” prompting some male members of the audience to cry out, “It’s you!”

Catherine Zeta-Jones is brushing off questions about her recent weight loss, saying she’s merely exercising and eating well to keep her svelte figure.

The actress told PEOPLE she laughed when her husband, Michael Douglas, informed her that reports had surfaced suggesting she had an eating disorder. “Michael was laughing at me. He told me what %26#91;people had%26#93; said - that stories say I’m anorexic. Do I look anorexic?” she told PEOPLE Saturday at the Savannah Film Festival. “How could I ever, ever be anorexic?”

In the past she was a “bread girl,” she said, adding, “I looooove bread.”
 But these days, “I’m just working out and not chomping down what I usually chomp down.”

Zeta-Jones, wearing a black strapless dress at a festival afterparty, said she’s concerned about the attention on women’s weight. “There are many women %26#91;who are%26#93; maybe a little fragile, and it becomes a huge issue.”

Douglas Jokes About Lifetime Achievement Award

Earlier in the evening, after viewing a montage of Douglas’s film career, the actor thanked the Savannah Film Festival for the award. “As far as a lifetime achievement award goes, you always think, ‘Have they talked to your doctor?’” he quipped.

He also thanked his father, Kirk Douglas, for his support, his mentor, Karl Malden, who starred with him in The Streets of San Francisco, and his mother, Diana. “My mother is an actress … %26#91;She’s%26#93; not anywhere as famous as my father, but my mother always had such a love of acting, such a joy. It wasn’t how successful she was in her career but how much she loved acting and that helped me a lot.
”

Douglas, 63, also joked about how his children are too young to know much about their father’s career. “Dylan is 7 and Carys is 4. I don’t have a movie that they can see. So up until tonight, they knew mommy is an actress and daddy makes pancakes. So thank you. Now they know what their father does.”

Catherine Zeta-Jones is enjoying life with two kids - so how about having another?

“No,” Zeta-Jones, whose offspring with husband Michael Douglas are son Dylan, 7, and daughter Carys, 4, tells the U.K.’s Tatler magazine for its September issue. “I’d love to but my life is so hectic. I’m very happy with one of each.”

Having told PEOPLE last month that the best part of motherhood was hearing her kids say “Mama!,” the Wales-born No Reservations star, 37, tells the British publication, “They’re healthy, happy, funny … so I’m done.”

Married to Douglas since 2000, the Chicago Oscar winner recalls being young and single - and experiencing a not-particularly auspicious introduction to looking after babies.

At age 17 she was living in London and appearing in a West End production of the musical 42nd Street.

“I had a room in a single mum’s house, with this baby. I’d never changed a %26#91;diaper%26#93; before and she asked me one morning if I could look after the baby and I was like, What? I’ve got rehearsals at 3, and I don’t know whether I can do it … don’t leave me alone with a child!”

Flash forward to now, and the story is very different.

“He is so cute,” Zeta-Jones says of son Dylan, who “loves to dress up as a pirate at the moment. From 7 o’clock in the morning to 7 at night. He’ll come in and I’ll think, ‘What are you wearing?’ ”

Daughter Carys is a girlie girl whose “approval” her mother seeks before leaving the house.

“On everything from my high heels to my jewelry,” Zeta-Jones explains with a laugh. “She will sit there in her tutu or a beautiful dress and critique my look, and then accessorize her own outfit, which she will wear to school.”

Carys and Dylan have seen their mother looking glamorous onscreen, such as in Zorro, but they’ve not their father’s films.

Says their mom: “They’re only 7 and 4, so I am not having them seeing their father’s films with Glenn Close and Sharon Stone just yet!”

Catherine Zeta-Jones says chopping and sautéing didn’t come easily for her as she played a high-powered chef in No Reservations. “It was intimidating at first because I never realized what goes on behind those flippy-floppy kitchen doors,” the actress, 37, tells PEOPLE. But her role at the stove was just one the many parts of her life that PEOPLE.com readers were curious to know. Hundreds of you wrote in to ask the star about her new movie, marriage and how she stays glam - and here are some of her answers.

Congrats to you and Michael Douglas on your loving and successful marriage! How do you keep it fresh? -Jennifer Parks, Portage, Mich.
Aw, that’s nice. Well, we’re kind to each other. We respect each other. We spend a considerable amount of time together and sometimes it blows my mind that we’re not more confrontational or more snappy! If you can’t be kind to the person you love most of all in the world, who do you want to be kind and respectful to?

How do you keep your skin in such amazing condition? -Melissa Joslin, Clovis, Calif.
My mother always told me that no matter how late it is, you take your makeup off. Take it off! And I don’t wear as much makeup as I do when I’m on TV. They put the powder on so I’ll be shining, which drives me nuts! In No Reservations, I don’t wear that much makeup, which was a really different thing for me. Usually it’s like, “Is she out of hair and makeup yet?” But it was a quick fix on this one. It was actually quite refreshing.

We all hear how stars like certain perks while they’re on a movie set. What is one perk that you request? -Heidi D’Amico, Germantown, Md.
I’m pretty easy on the movie set actually. I think it comes from all those years being in theater. I’m not a grandiose movie star at all. But I always like to know when lunch is going to be. It’s really important for me because I start getting the shakes when my blood sugar goes down so, I get really upset if lunch doesn’t happen when it’s supposed to happen.

How did you prepare for your role in No Reservations? -Emile Jasperson, Newmarket, Canada
I started off very slowly in an Italian restaurant in New York %26#91;called Fiamma%26#93;. I spent hours learning to chop, toss and flick and how to move with the sous-chefs without bumping into them and knocking the plates off and out of their hands. I also learned to dress and beautify the %26#91;dish%26#93; with the final preparations. It’s the pretty girly stuff that I ended up being really good at.

What do you use to keep you hair looking so healthy? -Javeed Lubna, Fort Worth, Texas
I live in Bermuda and I swim a lot so I’m constantly walking around with wet hair filled with conditioner. I do that all the time. A regular conditioner, brush it through, tie it up and then have it chopped a lot, just to keep off those ends. I had it done yesterday. I work with some of the best hairdressers in the world so you’ve got to be honest and say, “You know what? It’s not all my doing.”

I’ve read that you are a big golfer! I, too, love to play, but am just learning. What advice do you have for teenagers, like myself, looking to get into the game? -Josie Johnston, Santa Barbara, Calif.
I adore playing golf! If I had to give advice, it’s don’t get into bad habits too early. Take a lesson so you know the correct way to hold the club, to stand, to do your backswing. Once you start getting into trouble, go get somebody who can do a quick fix and then you haven’t got to spend years like me trying to undo bad habits.

What is the best thing about being a mother? -Tracy Liu, Toronto
The best thing about being a mother is having those little beautiful faces look up to you and say, “Mama!”

For more of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s interview, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE on newsstands now.

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