OSCAR-WINNING ACTOR AND PRODUCER MICHAEL DOUGLAS
HAS SURVIVED HOLLYWOOD THANKS TO OFF-SCREEN SMARTS AND ON-SCREEN VERSATILITY. CASE IN POINT? HE’S NEXT STARRING AS A BIG BAD IN INDIE BEYOND THE REACH AND A SUPERHERO IN BLOCKBUSTER ANT-MAN. “I’M FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE PRETTY GOOD FIRST INSTINCTS,” HE S
After over 40 years in the film business, Michael Douglas has finally discovered the key to surviving movie junkets. “The secret is to only do two-thirds of the day,” he reveals with a wry smile, “and cut out those last three hours when they jam in all the last [ interviews].” You can’t fault his logic. It’s probably why the 70-year-old actor/producer seems so fresh and relaxed when Total Film meets him at LA’s Four Seasons Hotel, just out of the baking midday sun, where he’s promoting his latest project, the desert-set indie thriller Beyond The
Reach. Not that he’s clocking off early, though; rather taking a well-earned break before tackling the late-night TV circuit…
“I’m going over to do James Corden’s show,” he says, enthusiastically, of his impending date with the Brit actor turned talk-show host. “He’s such a good actor. What was the name of the series he did in the UK?”
Gavin & Stacey.
“That’s it, yeah. Very talented guy. He wants to recreate the scene from Basic Instinct. He’s going to play Sharon Stone in the [ part] where she crosses her legs. It should be… interesting.”
As anyone who saw the skit will attest (the YouTube clip is well worth a few minutes of your lunch break), Douglas is an actor who clearly doesn’t take himself too seriously. Even under some of the intense media interest in his personal life that he’s encountered over recent years, he’s retained his good-natured demeanour and refreshing candour – both of which are present and correct when he sits down to chat with TF. Laid-back and unassuming in a crisp, opencollared blue shirt and grey slacks, he’s an engaging, naturally charismatic speaker who still refers to films as “pictures” and is happy to share anecdotes from the days of Hollywood past.
Despite his often cheeky sense of humour, there’s no denying Douglas has gravitas, too. The son of acting royalty Kirk, he’s become a Tinseltown legend in his own right – winning his first Oscar for the first film he ever produced (1975’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), nabbing a second for his performance as Machiavellian trader Gordon Gekko in 1987’s Wall Street and navigating an impressively diverse and successful career that’s seen him work with everyone from Jack Lemmon to Robert Downey Jr on-camera and Ridley Scott to David Fincher off it. It’s that mix that surely saw him as a shoe-in for the role of genius inventor and erstwhile superhero Hank Pym in Marvel’s upcoming blockbuster
Ant-Man – his stature and experience shoring up one of the studio’s more out-there adaps, which is inevitably placing as much emphasis on wit as it is on action.
But before he gets to play the good guy Douglas is doing exactly the opposite in Beyond The Reach, a tense chase movie in which he plays an entitled corporate shark who turns on his young guide ( War Horse’s Jeremy Irvine) when a hunting trip in the Mojave desert veers horribly – and incriminatingly – off course. Pursuing and tormenting his prey ruthlessly through the blistering heat and harsh landscape, it’s a knowing, deliciously OTT turn from the actor, in a film he obviously feels passionately about – it’s the first he’s produced in nearly 10 years. “Villains are fun to play,” he grins. “Most actors will tell you that. Not having to have a moral compass allows you to eat up the scenery a little bit...”
It’s safe to say your character in Beyond The Reach is not a very nice guy. What was it about that character that appealed to you?
I’m always looking for what I think is a good movie. This actually was a book that I read back in 1972 called Deathwatch. Later, I acquired a literary library and I saw the story again. I said, “Well, this is a good little cat-and-mouse thriller.” I’m fortunate because after Gordon Gekko, people can relate to [ me playing a villain]. This guy is a little further gone than that – I thought, “I can do this eight degrees north of Gekko!”
You filmed on location in the desert. It must have been a testing shoot...
It turned out that these locations were about an hour-and-a-half from the hotel. So that’s three hours of your day spent travelling, which was not a great idea; it took a lot of time. And then once you got to your location, you started hiking... There was no porta-toilet. There was no trailer. You’d sit on your little fold-up chair with these umbrellas to protect you from the sun, and that was it for the day. So it was a very hard shoot. One of the hardest. I’m extremely grateful to Jeremy. I don’t know many actors who would put up with as rigorous a test as he did. Not to mention the fact that my intention was not to hire a British actor to play an all-American high-school senior, which is really a tribute to what a good actor he is.
As a producer, how important is it for you to support new talent, like director Jean-Baptiste Léonetti?
I don’t know if I feel like I’m required to or it’s part of my responsibility. Jean-Baptiste had done [ 2011
French drama] Carré Blanc and a lot of commercial work, so I knew there was a comfort factor. I certainly feel open to foreign directors. Hollywood is an international community. Look at the people I’ve worked with through my career: Paul Verhoeven, Milos Forman, Ridley Scott, John Woo [ Douglas exec produced Face/Off]... They’re all talents that have come from different countries to this epicentre of filmmaking – good or bad, but it’s what you must call it. I feel happy for JB; it’s opened up some other avenues for him.
A lot of your early movies saw you making a name for yourself as a producer as well as an actor. How did you get started in the industry?
I was a latecomer to acting. I really didn’t start acting until I was in college. I was a hippie. It was the early ’60s. I went to school at Santa Barbara, California and I was having a great time. They called me in the beginning of my junior year, and said, “You have to declare a major. You can’t just keep declaring ‘General Education’.” So I said, “I’ll do theatre.” My mother is an actress – and obviously my father is. I figured it’d be easy. I then started doing plays and had terrible stage fright. It was just not very good, I kind of just fought through it. It became more of a challenge. I can’t say I enjoyed it. I didn’t.
I started working off-Broadway in New York, then I got a break in television. At that time, my father had acquired the rights to One Flew Over
The Cuckoo’s Nest; he tried for a couple of years to get it made [ as a movie] but he couldn’t. I had no intention of being a producer, but I raised my hand and said, “Dad, give me a chance to run with this.” He gave me this extraordinary opportunity. I went after it. I ended up acting [ in cop show The Streets Of San Francisco] by day, and developing
Cuckoo’s Nest by night.
And it eventually bagged you your first Oscar…
It was a fairytale story. On my first movie I won the Academy Award, with my partner, Saul Zaentz, for Best Picture. So now I’m an Academy Award-winning film producer but as an actor I’m trying to make the transition – because I’d left the television series – to try and go into feature films. And back then, that was not an easy task. Clint Eastwood, I think, had done it. Steve McQueen. But there weren’t many people that had done it. That’s why so early on I produced The China Syndrome – I had a smaller part for me
in that – and Romancing The Stone. With those earlier pictures, it was fortuitous.
Romancing The Stone was the film that really sold you as a leading man, and was hugely successful; how did you bag the role of Jack Colton?
My big drawing power was as a producer. It was a first-time script. We paid $350,000 for it, which was a tremendous amount of money. How can you pay a first-time writer that much money? But when it’s good, it’s good. It doesn’t matter. I was not thinking of myself playing that part. I tried to get a couple of other actors and they couldn’t do it. Eventually, I did. I think that was my first taste of playing a rascal – somebody who’s fun, but has a little bit of larceny in his blood. I’ve always been attracted to those kinds of
characters. I think it’s just being part of my generation. After World War II, we lost our blackand-white outlook. Vietnam became much more of a grey area. The movies tended to show that.
The great thing about that movie was the chemistry between you, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. You all worked together on the sequel, The Jewel
Of The Nile and then again on The War Of The Roses. How did that friendship come about?
Danny DeVito was my roommate when I first got to New York after college. He’s one of my best friends. I wrote that part in the first one for him. With Kathleen, I was fortunate – the studio wanted Debra Winger at first but she was doing
Terms Of Endearment. Again, Romancing The Stone was one of those films where you’re on location, you’re all in the same hotel, you eat a lot more meals and spend a lot more time together. You’re in a foreign country. [ The film was shot in Mexico.] You form a close bond. You do a sequel together. By the time we got to War Of The Roses, you understand why actors like to work with each other. You don’t have to go through the formal introductions, you can step on each other’s lines and overlap. There’s a comfort factor. Same with directors. I now understand Martin Scorsese and Bobby De Niro, and those other combinations. You can just jump right into it.
You had a great run in the late ’80s, and at its peak you won your first acting Oscar, for Wall Street...
It’s one of the best parts I ever had. I didn’t know Oliver [ Stone] was looking, as he said, for an actor who had some business acumen. Because I was a producer and because I had grown up back east and had friends on Wall Street... I think he was looking for somebody who had that. Actors that have worked with Oliver have given their best performances. You go from Jimmy Woods in
Salvador to Tom Cruise in Born On The Fourth Of July to Val Kilmer in The Doors and Kevin Costner in JFK – the list goes on and on. Part of that is that Oliver’s tough. Oliver is not the patriarch who’s cuddling his children, he’s tough. He was in Vietnam; “Can I trust you in the trench with me?” He has a confrontational style and he pushes you. I can’t say he was easy but I’ll be eternally grateful for the end results.
It became such a phenomenon, almost to the point where it felt like the people you were casting aspersions on were almost seeing it as something to aspire to…
It was really all the guys coming out of business schools who just thought Gordon Gekko was the cat’s meow. One more drunken Wall Street guy coming up to me and saying, “You’re the man. You’re the reason why I wanted this...” I look at them and say, “I went to jail!” But they love the panache. That’s the beauty of playing a villain. You want to attract people. You kiss them before you fuck them. The Devil’s not ugly. The Devil is very seductive.
Was that partly the reason why you decided to go back to the sequel, Money Never Sleeps, especially given the timing after the crash?
I thought it could be an interesting story. The times, it was funny to me... The numbers you’re talking about in the original Wall Street versus what the reality was by Wall Street 2 was extraordinary. I think we’re all kind of fascinated by what had happened. That was only the second time I’d done a sequel. I don’t normally like to do it but I thought it’d be an interesting opportunity, to bring someone who did some jail time back out.
Films like Wall Street, Fatal Attraction and Falling Down became instantly integrated into pop culture. Do you ever think about that when you’re taking on a role?
I’m fortunate enough to have pretty good first instincts – and to usually trust them. If I’m moved or fascinated or scared by a script, if it was a good read, then I’ll go back and break it down. This is the producer part of me. I’m an old-fashioned, three-act structure guy. I’ll look at the structure and make sure I wasn’t seduced by good stage directions or something, and see if it really makes sense, that the framework of the building is solid.
You took something of a risk with Basic Instinct. You mentioned working with Paul Verhoeven before – how was your experience on that?
I’d taken a good look at Spetters [ Verhoeven’s 1980
dirt-bike drama] and a couple of his other Dutch pictures, which knocked me out. He’s a Calvinist agnostic; as strong as religion is, that’s how strongly he resists it. He’s also an incredible logician. He used to major in mathematics. He can reduce everything to its lowest common denominator. I wanted to do a Basic Instinct, I wanted to do a Slam Dance. I thought there was a conservatism that was creeping into [ Hollywood]. We wanted to do a rough, sexy picture. We got on great. There were issues in terms of his obsession with Sharon [ laughs] but I admire him. We’re working on something else right now. Again, he’s not touchy-feely but I’m very fond of him.
If I’m moved or fascinated or scared by a script, I’ll go back and break it down
You also worked with a young David Fincher on The Game... Did you feel back then like he was really coming into his own as a filmmaker?
Oh yeah. There was no question. We had a 90-day schedule. It was phenomenally long. He does more takes than anybody I’ve worked with before. And I’m kind of the opposite, I usually get it in the first two or three takes. But you do it, and once in a while it was painful. But he’s a lovely, talented guy. I love that movie because you didn’t know how it was going to end. I love making movies. I love developing. I don’t see a lot of movies. I’ll see the ones I’m sent from the Academy, and I’ll see pictures with my kids. But I love sports. Why do I love sports? You don’t know how it’s going to end. I thought David did a stunning job because that was truly unpredictable. I think that’s one of the reasons why people like it so much.
After that, you started your relationship with another now-accomplished filmmaker, Steven Soderbergh, on Traffic...
I remember the first day, seeing Steven. He said, “Let me show you your trailer.” So I said, “OK.” We walked over and he said, “This is your trailer.” “OK.” “But take a look at it.” “What?” “Take a good look at it.” “I’m looking at it. Why?” “Because this is the last time you’ll see it.” He was right. He’s so fast. You never go back to your trailer between shots. It was a whole new experience. The thing is with Steven, he always looks like he’s thinking about something else. One time during the shooting, in the middle of this scene, he said, “Have you ever thought about playing Liberace?” And I thought, “Am I mincing?” What a weird question. “No, I haven’t thought of playing him.” He never said another word about it. But years later, all of a sudden, I’m on the [Behind The Candelabra] project.
Behind The Candelabra was interesting because it saw you heading back to US TV with HBO, even though it got a theatrical release elsewhere...
I wasn’t sure about that but it was by far the best choice because what’s happened, especially on these little indie movies, is that you scrape together a budget from getting foreign advance sales – let’s say it’s $9m, $8m, $10m... – but then you need $10-15m of advertising. It doesn’t always happen, then you get stuck with a little picture with no release. The whole experience turned out to be fabulous because you have a built-in audience with HBO. It screened well and we were able to take it theatrically around the rest of the world. Even now with Beyond The Reach we had a limited opening [ in the US] and went On Demand at the same time, so you don’t waste all those advertising dollars. You’re able to use them for a better purpose. It’s a good way to go now for smaller movies.
And from small movies to giant ones, we’ll soon be seeing you in Ant-Man...
I’m excited to be a part of it!
Were you aware how important a character Hank Pym is to the Marvel universe?
No. I was given a whole bunch of comics to see and understand, and still I didn’t realise how important Hank Pym was to the Avengers. It’s been fun. Someone was just telling me that the trailer’s just gone onto the internet and it’s got millions of hits already. It’s wild!
So why the decision to do a comic-book movie now?
Some people ask me what new things I’d like to try. Well, I haven’t done any green-screen pictures. These guys are impressive. It’s a fascinating process. I got to watch the different units, the visual-effects and the macro unit in this particular case, dealing with this incredible angle from the ant’s point of view, which is just such a trip when you see it. I’m just doing my my ADR work [ re
recording dialogue] so I’m seeing a few sequences that are not even completely finished, but it’s just mind-blowing. Paul [ Rudd] is a lovely guy. He’ll be very, very effective. The whole Marvel world, it’s something else. We’re preparing for weeks of promotion, going around the world. And it’s nice to have your trailer on the adventures!