Rendez-vous with… Michael Douglas
Silver-screen legend Michael Douglas was awarded a lifetime achievement Honorary Palme d’or at the Festival’s Opening Ceremony. From ruthless businessman (Wall Street) to a detective out of his depth (the controversial Basic Instinct), the American actor and producer regaled festival-goers with a wise and funny look back over his career to date.
On the secret to his success
It’s a combination of passion and organisation. Whatever your field, you need to start with a solid grounding. Lots of people have good ideas that lead to nothing because they don’t put in the work. When you do something well, it touches people. As an actor and producer, I trust my instinct, too: it’s never let me down. First impressions are often right.
On comparisons with his father, Kirk Douglas
At the start of his career, my dad played men’s men, heroes. Unlike him, I started out playing sensitive men, before gradually shifting over to a darker register. When I won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Wall Street, I emerged from under my father’s shadow.
On producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Miloš Forman
To adapt Ken Kesey’s novel, we knew we wanted to film in the psychiatric hospital in Salem, Oregon. The director of the hospital loved what we were doing, and the actors got to mingle with the inpatients. Jack Nicholson arrived on set a few weeks after the film crew, which had become part and parcel of hospital life. One lunchtime he asked me: “Who are these guys? They don’t even stop for lunch!”. That’s when I realised we were on the right track.
On working on Wall Street by Oliver Stone
Every actor who’s worked with Oliver Stone has probably given their best ever performance in one of his films. As soon as we started filming Wall Street, the director told me he didn’t like my scenes. He wanted to feel my anger, so I completely changed tone for the camera, and worked on Gordon Gekko’s ‘businessman’ side. His advice really helped me.
“The hardest thing for an actor is having self-confidence in front of the camera”.
On the hugely successful Basic Instinct by Paul Verhoeven
I’ve always been drawn to ambiguous roles people can identify with. In Basic Instinct, an affair causes my character to spiral, to the extent that every viewer wonders what they themselves would have done in so impossible a situation. Audiences in France loved the film. I imagine every French woman took her husband to see it as a warning shot!
On his family values
Family is so important. They might drive you crazy, but they push you to accomplish wonderful things, too. I’m very close to my wife and children. I’m nothing without them. Filming It Runs in the Family by Fred Schepisi was an opportunity for us all to come together. My son, Cameron Douglas, was magnificent in this film. I remember looking at my dad, with both of us thinking: “We’ve got competition!”.
