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MICHAEL DOUGLAS, ACTING PRESIDENTIAL
By Betsy
Pickle
Scripps
Howard News Service
MICHAEL DOUGLAS was happy to say goodbye to Mr. Moral Ambiguity and
hello to "The American President."
After playing a series of conflicted, middle-aged white males, Douglas welcomed the chance
to play a character in a romantic comedy whose main conflict was how to work a love life
into his chief executive schedule.
"Comedy is nice," says Douglas. "Nice to get a laugh - makes a big change.
And it's nice not to struggle with the kind of moral dilemmas those other kinds of
characters had to do."
Douglas dealt with adultery in "Fatal Attraction," obsession in "Basic
Instinct," obsolescence in "Falling Down" and sexual harassment in
"Disclosure." In "The American President," now playing in St. Louis,
Douglas deals with dating.
As the title character, Douglas' Andrew Shepherd is a widowed resident of the White House.
Andrew has spent years mourning his wife, devoting his energies to running the country and
raising his prepubescent daughter, Lucy (Shawna Waldron).
With his re-election campaign looming and crucial legislation pending in Congress, Andrew
meets lobbyist Sydney Wade (Annette Bening), and he has to choose between holding on to
the hearts of voters and healing his own heart.
He got a glimpse of the enormity of the job of being president from the research that
screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Rob Reiner did on the movie.
"Aaron mentioned they were looking at different presidents' daily diaries; President
Johnson's looked staggering," Douglas tells reporters in an interview at the Four
Seasons hotel. "It starts almost every day 6, 6:15 a.m., right through, like, 12:30,
12:45 at night, 4 1/2, five hours' sleep.
"That was, I thought, what Aaron and Rob caught really well - the rhythm. You're
always tryin' to catch up, never enough time; you're tryin' to catch up for the rest of
the day."
In the film, Douglas exudes presidential confidence, but that wasn't how he felt when he
first arrived on the set.
"I was honored when Rob asked me, and I guess the last time I felt that way was when
Oliver (Stone) sent me `Wall Street.' I think every actor's dream is to play the president
one time in their career. All that initial enthusiasm was then washed away with the
anxiety about, `My God, how do you do this?'
"This is not a goofball, wide comedy of the president. This is relatively within a
straightforward structure and theme. (I had) a tremendous anxiety attack. But I usually
work that way, anyway. I always work out of fear initially. By the time I kinda built it
back up and got my confidence, through the rehearsal period, I really enjoyed it. And the
part calls for that."
The son of screen legend Kirk Douglas, Douglas' box-office stardom has encompassed such
hits as "Romancing the Stone," "Fatal Attraction," "The War of
the Roses," "Basic Instinct" and "Disclosure." But originally his
big-time movie success came as a producer - with the Oscar-winning "One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest" in 1975 and the timely "The China Syndrome" in 1979.
Those who knew him best never expected Douglas to seek a career in front of the camera.
"Dad and I were talkin'," he recalls. "The first couple of productions in
college - the good doting father - he came up and he said, `Well, thank God I don't have
to worry about him getting into acting.'
"Because of `Cuckoo's Nest' . . . and `China Syndrome,' everybody said, `Why are you
acting? You should produce.' They didn't mean it, probably, as nastily as it sounded or
hurt. I said, `Well, 'cause I like acting, and I think I have something to offer.'
"I think second-generation people tend to be late bloomers a little bit. Rob (Reiner)
and I talk about it; I think we're about the only ones - well, Jeff Bridges - whose
fathers were major stars in their own rights. I think it just takes you a little longer
than most to find yourself.
"I think the thing I'm most proud about in my career is the variety of roles that
I've played and what people accept me (as), allow me to do. I think the big difference
really is from having this producing background; I really do look at the material first
and make sure structurally it's all there, and the director then is really important. And
then the parts fall where they may."
The confidence of Andrew Shepherd is not unlike the confidence of Gordon Gekko, the
"Wall Street" character whose portrayal won Douglas a Best Actor Oscar.
"When you have these moral-ambiguity characters, they're always struggling with a
lack of confidence because they're always questioning themselves," says Douglas.
"So when you have things like `greed is good,' or the president of the United States,
there's just the freedom that the part gives you that there's no questions asked. The
character's not questioning himself.
"For me, the first, most important thing was to get the presidential aspects; then
you've gotta show vulnerability. But we never see vulnerable presidents; we only see
presidents on television at the height of their strengths.
"I said, `How do we do the vulnerability without making him look weak?' I was kinda
concerned about that. But then again, Aaron and Rob have this thing called humor. So out
of humor, one can show one's foibles and vulnerability without it appearing weak."
Reiner and Sorkin's politics are not sugarcoated in "The American President" -
the environment and gun control issues take center stage - but Douglas doesn't have a
problem with that.
"I think the whole tone of this picture - the straightforwardness of it, the fact
that it carries its honor on its sleeve, and it's a very direct kind of picture from,
like, another time - it's fresh. There is no ambivalence to how the writer and director
feel, the positions they take.
"I must say, I've seen a few pictures this fall, and I've been the prince of darkness
for a long time, but this has been a dark fall, man. This has been a really dark fall. I
think this'll be fun to see. There's a tone about it that's heartening."
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