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Michael Douglas: In the Shadows
Source: Unknown

Of Kirk Douglas's four sons, it is Michael who looks the most like him. And, it could be argued, acts the most like him. It took a long time for Michael to emerge from his father's long shadow. He came to prominence in the 1970s as Karl Malden's sidekick in TV's The Streets of San Francisco, but he first made his mark in Hollywood as a producer, clinching a Best Picture Oscar for converting the cult novel `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' into Jack Nicholson's first mainstream hit.

It wasn't until the mid-80s, though, that Michael Douglas scored as a film actor -- first as the philandering husband in Fatal Attraction, then as the veritable epitome of Reaganomics greed in Oliver Stone's Wall Street. As slick, ultra-wealthy financier Gordon Gekko, Michael won an Oscar for Best Actor, an accolade which has eluded his father. He continues to heat up the screen in such films as Basic Instinct and Disclosure. Now he is starring in An American President.

Q: How did you grow up as a second-generation Hollywood kid without getting screwed up?
A: Well, the verdict's still out, but my parents got divorced when I was five or six, and I grew up outside of Hollywood. I lived with my mother in New York, and then after she remarried, we moved to Connecticut. Also, even after they divorced, my parents were always close; even the step-parents always got along well. So I have never had that direct stress from a divorced family.

Q: Do you remember the first time you saw your dad on the big screen?
A: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. [Sings theme] ``Gotta a whale of a tale to tell you lads...''

Q: You sing with almost as much bluster as your dad.
A: I couldn't kiss the seal, though. You get extra for that. Have you ever smelled seal breath?

Q: What was it like as a kid to see your dad hack off his ear [playing Vincent Van Gogh] in Lust for Life?
A: That's when I realized what a wonderful actor he is. I remember seeing it in Connecticut with my [younger] brother Joel, and I totally lost the reality that he was my father. Joel and I were immersed in the fact that he was Van Gogh, the artist; that's how persuasive a performance it was. And then when he went in the mirror and whacked that ear off -- the blood hit the mirror -- it was so real, we thought he cut his ear off. My brother yelled, `Dad!' and headed out. It was traumatic at the time, but it gave me a real appreciation of what a great performance he gave.

Q: When are you and your dad going to make a film together?
A: We're trying. This last year, that is the only thing I've been trying to do: find a picture for Dad and I to do together. We've gone through a number of scripts, and he has been tough. He basically says we have got a wonderful relationship -- we get along great, we love each other -- let's not mess it up. And if we do, let's at least find a picture that's worthwhile. We just haven't found a picture with a bar set high enough. Good material is hard to come by.

Q: Here's a bit of trivia: as young men in the Sixties, you and Danny De Vito were roommates. Did either of you have any inkling that you'd both become famous actors?
A: I moved to New York after I had finished college and Danny and I shared an apartment. He was already making little super-8 films, very good ones. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that he was going to be a great director. I didn't know how much he was going to evolve as an actor. There are not many horses you can root on that you have known as long as we have known each other, so it's given us a great deal of enjoyment to see each other's successes, including the successes we have had together [Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, War of the Roses].

Q: If we were to ask Danny what kind of roommate you were, what would he say?
A: Sick, messy, perverted. We both probably helped each other's dark humor along in those days.

Q: Danny's directed films to great acclaim. Why haven't we seen you direct a film yet?
A: I've been busy as an actor. I had all those early successes as a producer [including a Best Picture Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest], but really didn't get much respect as an actor until Fatal Attraction and Wall Street, only seven or eight years ago. So I'm taking advantage of the chance to get these kinds of parts to play which I didn't get before. I'll take my lead from people like Robert Redford and Paul Newman. When I get into my fifties and start looking into the twilight, I'll start directing a bit. Also, because I've produced and have been able to work with directors in a close relationship, I've never felt frustrated, or felt like somebody else had a different vision. I've always been able to talk to directors both as an actor and a producer and felt that I knew what was going on.

Q: As an international star, how do foreign perceptions of you differ from the way you're treated in the U.S.?
A: All of my films have done better foreign than here. I think [foreigners] are not as concerned, or don't appear to be immersed in, the father-son comparisons.

Q: Is there a difference in the way people on the street treat you at home compared to abroad?
A: In Europe, there is more of a surprise to see you, they are fun about it. They're excited to see you, and you make their day. In the States, they are respectful, but they're more cool.

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