Before Julia Roberts was dubbed America’s Sweetheart, she was a working actress trying to make it in Hollywood. But Richard Gere, Roberts' co-star in 1990's Pretty Woman, says he always knew the Oscar winner was something special.

At the Hollywood Awards on Monday, Usmagazine.com asked the 58-year-old Hoax star to share his favorite memory of Roberts, 39. "I think just meeting her,” he said. “I remember very clearly her coming into my office, and she had done Mystic Pizza at that point, and you could feel there was something magical about her."

But don’t expect any more romantic comedies out of the duo, who also co-starred in Runaway Bride. “We have done two movies and they were both successful so maybe we should just let it go at that,” he says.

And how does it feel to be a sex symbol? “Now this is when I start blushing!” Gere says. “I have never been comfortable with the sex symbol.”

The actor certainly doesn’t get the movie star treatment in his own household. When asked if his son, Homer, 7, realizes his dad is famous, Gere replied, "He just says, ‘That's my dad's job.’ He realizes that his dad makes movies and some fathers do other things. It's not a big deal."

Gere credits his wife, actress Carey Lowell, for his happiness. "Everything in my life is a tribute to my wife," he says. "It doesn't work without her. Nothing does. She is incredible.”