Does money and power really change a person adversely?

Money and celebrityhood change people's reaction to you. I have a few friends back East, big players, and people act like they're presidents or something.

I don't think I've changed. But it's hard for me to go to a bar and just reach out. You want to talk about football and they're going, "Hey, Michael Douglas!"

How do you know if a woman likes money and power or likes you?

I don't really care! I'll let 'em shine me on for a while.

As Kirk Douglas' son, what do you know about raising a son in the shadow of a very famous man?

When I was growing up being second generation Hollywood . . . somehow, no matter how much you succeeded as an actor yourself, some credit was always taken away by the fact that your father was in the business, too. So I see that for my son. How do you encourage somebody to pursue to his utmost what he's going to do?

Have you ever thought about why you've had so much less trouble adjusting as a famous man's son than some of your brothers?

Yeah, I have. But I was a hippie. So monetary gain wasn't part of my vernacular. I had the advantage of growing up in the '60s, which was a magical, wonderful, spiritual, loving, communicative time. And I had a great mom and she was married to a great man. I grew up with them back East. He was a surrogate father. He really raised me. My father has acknowledged that many times. It was a life outside of Hollywood. I worked in a gas station.

You worked in a gas station?

I was Mobile man of the month. I worked for a gas station when I flunked out of college.

There is a theme at work in your films: the white put-upon male.

My dad wasn't really acknowledged as an actor until he did Champion, a tough guy, and got his first Oscar nomination. My acknowledgment came with Wall Street. Audiences are generally attracted to nasty people. Good behavior is looked down on as being weak or homogenized. In Fatal Attraction we were shocked at how quickly the audience forgave me for adultery.

Your father receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars seemed like a very emotional moment.

The build-up was difficult, because Dad was struggling with his speech at that time. I had to be the one to tell him that he really shouldn't talk. It would be too uncomfortable. He had worked up a speech. He's such a hard worker. "Just enjoy this," I told him. "Let's not make this a test." Everyone said it was so brave for him to be there. I said, "Brave? They could have taken him out there in an iron lung." He was not going to not be there.

But your father did speak.

Eloquently and briefly. But he had a SPEECH prepared, an old-fashioned long speech.

What did winning your Oscar for Wall Street mean to you?

For somebody like me, who did have the shadow of my father for all those years, to be acknowledged by my peers really meant a lot. There are very few second-generation actors who've succeeded at all.