Smash Notes
#2565 - Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas is an actor, producer, writer, and philanthropist whose film and television credits include "Wall Street," "Fatal Attraction," "Basic Instinct," "Behind the Candelabra," and "The Kominsky Method." He has won two Academy Awards, multiple Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He is also a recipient of…
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Notes
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Michael Douglas said the movie was his fault, and that Gordon Gekko was a hero. Joe Rogan asked how many guys did cocaine and became terrible stockbrokers because of Wall Street.
After the picture came out, half-drunk Wall Street guys in New York told Douglas he was the man. Douglas said he was the villain. They wanted the clothes, and nothing had any morality. Joe Rogan said they wanted the most expensive suits possible, the coke, and the stolen money, and that Douglas was like Tony Soprano for Italian guys. They loved the pizzazz. They rooted for a bad guy. Douglas said Wall Street came out in 85.
Douglas called the reaction an eye opener. The traders wanted the character anyway, and playing the villain did not matter.
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Michael Douglas supports the United Nations because it was designed after World War II as a place for countries to get together. There is no reason for any more wars, yet more conflict is going on than ever before.
In college, a lecture from the man behind the geodesic dome, who also wrote a book called Spaceship Earth, showed how tiny the planet is. Telescopes were looking farther and farther out. Michael Douglas is sure something else is out there in the universe, and maybe people will find it, but right now Earth is all there is. The planet is beginning to crumble worldwide with the climate. After two major world wars and a period of relative peace, things are beginning to crack again. The United States is called the most powerful country, but countries have to work together. Some people say social media is designed to create conflict or create enemies. Michael Douglas says that just cannot be, and people have to get over conflict and begin to work together.
Michael Douglas supports a couple of organizations that are not the most popular right now but are greatly conceived. The United Nations is one of them. The United States gets angry sometimes when votes do not go its way, and the United States will financially support the United Nations.
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Michael Douglas did not get a gun after being told to get one. He has thought about it and still stays away. Too many family members have been injured, and guns have been used in other ways. Michael Douglas says the statistics of gun control are not good.
Michael Douglas followed a trail and saw a cat's leg. People had dismembered her two cats all the way across the yard. Michael Douglas talked with the police about what was going on. Right after the talk, the Manson murders happened, and they tied the killings together. Police came into the house and said to get a gun, which he did not. They said if the killers came up, drag them across the front door so they were inside the house. The line drew a joke that an intruder has to be brought inside before being killed. Joe Rogan asked about getting a gun, and Douglas said no.
Michael Douglas puts the country at 360 million people and thinks the gun count is 450 million. The murder rate is far higher than in any other sophisticated country with guns. Michael Douglas cannot find a reason for somebody to own an automatic military-style weapon. He understands the amendments and supports them. A gun should work more like a car: a license is required and certain things have to be passed, yet loopholes remain.
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Michael Douglas says four really great parts in a career is lucky, and R. P. McMurphy was one of them. His dad was 60 or 62. The director and the financing did not see his dad in the part, so Douglas told him it was not going to happen. Douglas had gone to the mat. They were still producing the picture, and he gave his dad half of his producing deal for the opportunity.
They made the movie. Douglas brought his dad to Berkeley, California to see the final cut. His dad came out of the theater and called it a hell of a movie. Every few years, after a couple of pops, his dad would say he could have done the picture. The Streets of San Francisco was a big hit, the number one show on ABC, averaging 24 or 25 million viewers a week. ABC was a brand new network, and the series was syndicated all over the world. People asked why he would leave in the fifth to produce a little indie film, and he was not even going to act in it.
Douglas had never thought about producing. He was in love with the project. Across 104 episodes and 104 hours of television with Carl Malden, he had learned production, and he was shocked by how much he knew when the picture came together.