Michael Douglas on Solitary Man, Gordon Gekko's Legacy, and the Battle of the Sexes

But early on when Ben points out the door and tells Cheston, "Out there are nothing but opportunities," do you think he believed it?

DOUGLAS: Sh*t, yeah. It's the truth. There are. I mean, to tell a sophomore in college? Oh my God, yes. Hung up on this girl? Are you kidding me? Forget it. I mean, enjoy it! That's the joy of being a sophomore rather than a junior or a senior. Enjoy it! There's nothing but possibilities. And Ben's obviously trying to talk himself into it, too. It's a little exhausting. But I loved the way Jesse looked at him. Loved it.

Twenty years ago, the relationships your characters in Fatal Attraction or Basic Instinct or Disclosure had with women were very controversial. What was your impression of a young woman like Allyson so dramatically turning the table
s on Ben?

DOUGLAS: Well, I always thought of it in the script, when she tells her mother [about their tryst], it's just like... ugh. It takes the wind out of you. Back then, though, I was really much more about the battle of the sexes and how uncomfortable men and women were with each other -- how we were defining our roles with women in power. This I just found very funny. There's humor in it. Maybe it's darker than most.

LEVIEN: We didn't have conversations about past roles too often and how they played into any given scene. But we were aware of the effect of Michael playing this character. Because the type of guys who might have inspired a Ben Kalmen, those guys have watched Wall Street a hundred times. They think they're Gordon Gekko -- or they want to be Gordon Gekko. They walk around acting like these guys.

KOPPELMAN: They're guys who cheered when he was f*cking Glenn Close and thinking, "Yeah! He deserves that!" Those guys used those movies to justify a lot of behavior. Michael has said many times that Gordon Gekko -- who we all thought was the villain -- turned out to be guy who inspired all these titans of Wall Street! So yes, we were aware of how the iconography of Michael in those roles is present. But we never, in the actual moment, though, "Oh, this turns the table on those characters." The semiotics are there whether you address them overtly or not.

DOUGLAS: There's only one picture in my entire career that has not been a contemporary picture. Then you do a couple little action pictures, but I'm not an action guy. So then it's me and the girls! It really is.

LEVIEN: Well, it won't be next time, will it? With Matt [Damon] and Liberace?

DOUGLAS: No, not with that one. But it's a narrower kind of window, kind of like a good Rothko painting.

What about your relationships with younger men? How has 20 years changed perspectives between you and the next generation -- guys like Cheston here or Jacob from Wall Street 2?

DOUGLAS: I think because I produce and because the only time I pick a role is because of the movie, I'm looking out for the movie. I want to be as good as I can, but I'm only as good as everybody else around me. With the ladies, I've always been supportive in any kind of scenes we had to do. In this picture, I'm in every single scene. We had a fantastic cast that came in, but I know they're only in for a few days, and it's really hard for them to catch up on this kind of tight schedule. So I really try to make an effort -- selfishly -- but make an effort to make everybody as comfortable as possible to get get the best possible performance. That's something I picked up from Paul Newman: You want to surround yourself with the best actors possible. You don't want to compete or put down or have these guys you've got to take to the cutting room try to make their part. A so-called "star." You want the best possible group together. It's in the interest of making the movie -- be it Jesse or Shia.

But do you feel like you share these characters' mentorship roles? Or is it really straight story for you?

DOUGLAS: It's mostly story. Other than Wall Street, with Charlie, or this picture, I'm trying to think where else I've done that.

KOPPELMAN: Well, Tobey [Maguire].

DOUGLAS: Wonder Boys, that's true. [Laughs.] What do they say? "Unsolicited advice is a hostile gesture"?

So you weren't giving a lot of that on the set?

DOUGLAS: On the set? No. Off-camera I just make everybody comfortable. I might, with Shia, just give him a heads-up on Oliver or something like that.

Like what?

DOUGLAS: Ah, nothing. Just the way he gets performances out of actors. When these two came to me, I wasn't that familiar with Jesse, quite honestly -- or most of the other young actors. Imogen was a great discovery.

KOPPELMAN: That was a great feeling when we were rehearsing with Jesse. Michael came over to us and said, "Oh, this kid's great." It was so much fun to see how excited Michael still gets about acting. With Immy and Jesse in particular, after the first scene, he's like, "Guys, where did you get them?" That was so rewarding to us because we felt such a big obligation to him. He put his faith in us to do this.

DOUGLAS: Really, after that first scene with someone on a picture, you're always relieved when you can say, "Oh, thank God -- they're good."

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