Michael Douglas: The World on a String

Q: Personally, I think the shot of her in the catsuit dancing her way under those beams of light in Entrapment is what made that movie a hit.

A: Oh, yeah, I agree with you, absolutely. The flip off the beam wasn't bad either.

Q: You've owned this apartment for a long time. The den we're sitting in seems to be a guy's sensibility. How are you and Catherine meshing, in terms of style? A: I've had this place for about 15 years--I love it. About five or six years ago, I put two apartments together into this one. Catherine has been great. She loves New York. We spend time here, though our residence is still in Los Angeles, where I have a condo and she has a house that she's selling. We've also got a place in Colorado, and one in Spain.

Q: When she came in, did she redecorate?

A: No, this apartment has been this way for a while. She's comfortable and happy and feels secure enough with herself and our relationship that there's no, "I can't be here, your ex-wife used to be here. Let's sell the apartment and move." There's none of that. Hopefully, she feels like it's hers. As things go on and we get more kids, there'll be things we have to do.

Q: It's certainly beautiful as it is. Are you a big art collector?

A: I was. I started soon after Cuckoo's Nest. Originally, I wanted to collect German expressionists, but that gets expensive. So I picked up some Hudson River School, and I like Orientalist pieces from the turn of the century, when Europeans were going to North Africa and doing these exotic paintings. But I haven't collected for a while. I enjoy going to galleries and museums, but it's an insane time to be trying to acquire art. The truth is that I much prefer a view to a painting. I've got a couple other places with views as good as this one and I spend a lot more time looking out a window or off a porch than I do looking at a wall.

Q: Let's talk about your year on the big screen. After having a great role in Wonder Boys, you now have Traffic coming out. How did you come to do this film?

A: I loved the subject matter and I was a big fan of the director, Steven Soderbergh. Originally, the role was a very reactive part, and I said no at first. Steven then went to Harrison Ford and they did a rewrite. When I admire a director a lot I never think about interfering with the role--I just think about whether I'm going to do the picture. But Harrison or whoever works for him is very good, because it became a really good part. I was saying, I wish I'd thought of that. When Harrison, for whatever reason, decided not to go ahead, I said yeah.

Q: The most startling change from the original script is that the movie no longer has the scene where your character samples crack in order to understand the power it has over his missing daughter. What happened?

A: When we got into the movie, we saw that it made no sense for this character. One day, as the scene was coming up, Steven said, "You know, I just don't see him doing that." The moment no longer seemed valid.

Q: You've had family members with addiction problems and you yourself have had problems. Do you believe there is a genetic predisposition to addiction?

A: Alcoholism has been traced to some genes, and so has drug addiction. If you have a history of it in your family, you need to be more careful. The movie addresses the enormity of the drug problem.

Q: It took guts and a lack of vanity for Catherine to go onscreen in Traffic when she had visible effects of her pregnancy. She's become a brand name based on her beauty, but didn't seem hesitant to play a role when she wasn't looking her best.

A: That was her decision. And I certainly encouraged her. As someone who has tried to play different roles to avoid becoming typecast, I think it's important for Catherine, particularly with all that sex appeal stuff, to remind everyone early on that she's got some chops.

Q: Was Traffic a hard movie to get made? It bounced from one studio to another.

A: Even though Steven had an unbelievable year with Erin Brockovich, this is not a mainstream picture. Traffic needed somebody like Harrison Ford or me to get it made, which points out the state of our industry--I think we are going through some pretty weird times.

Q: How weird?

A: We're not much more than a generation away from the cottage industry run by the Warner brothers and the Harry Cohns, and now every studio is just a small part of a huge conglomerate. We've always had a precarious balance between art and commerce, but I think commerce is really top-heavy now. You're seeing much more a quarterly earnings mentality, which means the lowest common denominator. The development coming out of the studio system has been really thin, and I think movies are getting bad, I really do.

Q: Your earlier film this year, Wonder Boys, got fantastic reviews and nobody went to see it.

A: There was a big debate over how it was marketed. For one thing, I took a reduced salary to make a picture that was supposed to come out at the end of last year for Academy attention. That was why we all got involved. But around Oscar season, Paramount had Sleepy Hollow, Angela's Ashes, The Talented Mr. Ripley and one other, and we still had a couple things left to do to finish the film, so they moved it to 2000. For another thing, this was a quirky picture. I think they thought the only thing they had to market it with was me, and they put me out there looking kind of different, and nobody got it. I usually go along with everyone and assume they know what they're doing, but in this particular case, there were more unique ways to have marketed the picture. The reviews were as good as Curtis or I or anybody has ever gotten. The people who saw it liked it. Mind you, there was a healthy debate and we went that route, so I have to take some of the brunt of this myself. Now they're bringing it back for the attention. I'm happy to see there has been a change. Curtis has to be applauded, because it was his diplomacy and tenacity that saw it through. We'll see.

Q: Was that your best performance since Wall Street?

A: It was a really, really good part. It was different from the others. Compared with the characters in A Perfect Murder or Wall Street, this guy was much more uncertain about himself, more like the guy in Falling Down. Sometimes you want to do something a little different, not be so concerned about your vanity and you put on weight. Wonder Boys allowed me to play against the intensity that runs in the Douglas genes, to play a man of inaction as opposed to a man of action. I call it a coming-of-age movie for a 50-year-old.

Q: Having just worked with Steven Soderbergh and Curtis Hanson, who are both hitting their strides, can you compare the two?

A: Directors who have a stronger visual sense--I'm thinking of Ridley Scott on Black Rain and David Fincher on The Game--are probably the most difficult to understand. You really have to trust them, because it's all a matter of what they see, not necessarily what they hear, and they don't always communicate what they see. Curtis Hanson is a writer himself, so he's got an incredible ear. And Steven has the most unassuming style. He shoots the way I personally enjoy, with a little longer lens, staying out of the environment the actors create. They're both lovely gentlemen, and, I don't know--maybe I'm just getting older--but I like to work with people who are really pleasant. They both like actors, and you'd be surprised at how many directors really don't.

Q: It's on record that Oliver Stone aggressively manipulated you in the making of Wall Street. Can directors still work head games on you at this point in your career?

A: I'm sure they can, but if they've been doing it, I haven't really been aware of it since Oliver. He was the preeminent one in that area. Yet his record of getting performances from actors is incredible. Almost everybody he's ever worked with has done their best work with him.

Q: Which of the two Oscars you've won had the most palpable effect on your life, Best Picture for Cuckoo's Nest or Best Actor for Wall Street? A: The Oscar for Cuckoo's Nest had a profound impact, in that people kept asking me afterward, "Why are you acting?" I was just coming out of a television series, and I know they didn't mean it in the negative way it sounds, but I'd say, "I think I have something to offer." Everybody said, "But you're an Academy Award-winning producer!" I'd never thought about producing, though--I was just fortunate that my dad had bought the project. For me, the big one was Wall Street, because as an actor, and particularly one with a father who is an icon, to get nominated by my fellow actors and win was more important. It really helped me get out of that shadow. That was a great year for me, because I also did Fatal Attraction, and the two movies were back-to-back commercial successes. They changed my life.

Q: Was Wall Street a hard role to get right?

A: There was a tremendous amount of dialogue. I never believed until the day we started shooting that Oliver was going to shoot all of it. But he did. And he was good. He was adversarial, but in hindsight, he just wanted a little more of an edge, and he wasn't afraid of my taking it out on him. I worked really hard on that picture. With dialogue-heavy pictures, you really have to rehearse, you have to be able to brush your teeth with that dialogue, or you get into those TV habits, the so-called soap-opera syndrome, where there are pregnant pauses when they're remembering their lines.

Q: You've played a number of bad guys. Are there things you will not do? Could you have played Hannibal Lecter?

A: I might have, if I could have related to it. I don't believe in pure evil or pure good. I like the gray area. I'm always interested in the areas of moral dilemma where people are struggling to make the right decision.

Q: You must occasionally wonder if taking a character that's too evil could be career suicide.

A: Given the range of what I've done, I think I can be accepted doing almost anything. I'm not looking for trouble, but if it's a piece I can substantiate... look, on Gordon Gekko, if I get one more drunken guy from Wall Street telling me, "Hey man, you're the guy." I get more guys with tears in their eyes, saying, "You're the guy that made me want to go into this business." I'm the hero? I was the bad guy in that picture. But I'll tell you, there's certainly a lot more fun in playing a bad guy. Most audiences enjoy it more.

Q: Do you impose your viewpoint forcefully on a film?

A: A lot of directors fear I'm looking over their shoulder because I'm a producer. But when I'm acting, I'm into the joy of acting, of being somewhat selfish in dealing with that moment. Granted, before I start I think through the picture really well. I know the rhythm and I know what my responsibility as an actor is--to bring up the pace, or to find the humor or tension, whatever the picture needs. But I just love the moment.

Q: It must have been hard to find your way in acting when your dad was Spartacus. Was he helpful, critical?

A: He was helpful and wonderfully supportive. He saw every play I did in college. Of course, he was sure each time that it would be the last time. You try to create your own identity, but obviously half your genes are your dad's. I had a certain intensity, but I thought I'd never be the actor Dad was, and that led me to play sensitive kinds of roles early on. Later on, when I looked back at my father's career, I saw that his first six or seven movie roles, the ones before Champion, were sensitive young men, too. Generally, the children of parents who've achieved a lot of success are late bloomers. It takes a longer time to find your identity.

Q: When did you have the confidence to embrace that trademark Douglas intensity?

A: I didn't have a lot of choice early in my career. I had terrible stage fright, I was pretty shy, and I looked really young for my age. It took a while. Then you have to remember, even by 1984 when I produced Starman, which got Jeff Bridges an Oscar nomination, I was not on the list of actors that were acceptable for that role, and I wanted to be. The year I mentioned, when both Fatal Attraction and Wall Street came out, was the point at which I began to feel fully confident.

Q: You're now among a small number of actors who make the big bucks. Has being a producer helped you make some of the more daring choices that got you here?

A: I feel that the responsibility of having the success I've had is to continue to push myself. I enjoy the risk. The comment I most appreciate getting that's different from most of the guys is: "When I see your name in a movie, I never know what it's going to be, but I know it's going to be good." I think that because of my producing background, I tend to look out for the movie as a whole even when I'm acting, more than a lot of other actors. I think about what my responsibility is in each scene to make the movie work. And that means not being afraid of having the best possible actors in the other parts, and of letting them get their scenes or get the movie. Basic Instinct made Sharon Stone. It was a fabulous part. I was in every damn scene of that movie and had to work my ass off to keep it going, but mine is not the colorful part. Still, the picture looked and worked great and I'm proud of my work.

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