"Michael Douglas"

Okay, guys, I just walked through my mailbox. I'm going through my mail. Let's see what I got here. I got a jury notice. Probably toss that. I have a sweepstakes. I should probably enter that. I have a utility bill that's going to be turned off. All my lights are going to be turned off. Okay, I should probably toss that. Oh, what's this? Let me open this really quick. It's an all-new SmartList right now! Guys, guess what's coming up in a couple weeks. Yeah, I know. We got to mention. Oh, my God. Yeah, the Hollywood Bowl. We're going to be at the Hollywood Bowl October 17th. And not just there, like not hanging out, actually doing a show at the Hollywood Bowl. We're going to be on the stage. Yeah, yeah, we're not. And if you don't have tickets yet, you go to smartlist.com slash live. Is that right? Wait, what's it? What is it? Smartlist.com slash live. Oh, my gosh. That's pretty easy. And for that, they're going to get a double guest. Is that right? Yep. Two guests. Yep. And we got some fun surprises. Yeah. Really? Yeah, we got some fun surprises. All for the price of one ticket. Yeah, all for the price of one ticket. And a nice, beautiful October. October 17th. Correct. Right? A fall night out there under the stars. It's going to be gorgeous. And yeah, you buy a ticket, and you can't put a price tag on a smile. Oh, what a great sell. You know? Will, you're the best. Anyway, it's going to be a great night. Yes. Hopefully as great as this next guest coming up. Guys, let's get to the episode. Guys, I was racing out of the house to come be here on time. Yeah. And. Out of the house. Out of the house. Yeah, he had to go across the compound. Oh. Into a separate structure. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Golf cart. It's a half-hour golf cart drive. Tell the listeners. Mm-hmm. Wait, guys. Everybody just shh. Oh, I thought. Will, you can keep chewing, Will. Just everyone else just stop. Just listen for a second. God. I know. It's an audio show. Yeah. Anyway. And there in front of the window. By the front door, lying on the ground is a small bird that had hit the window, I guess earlier, and was not yet dead, but deeply wounded, hurt, and I'm racing to you guys. I didn't have a chance to stop and help. I had to call back into the house, and Amanda, I think, I hope, is tending to the young bird, but guys, I'm not good about seeing injured animals. This is the second time. This is the second time in five days that there's been a dead bird, a bird that was injured. Remember, on Sunday, a mate came across an injured bird. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What's going on? What if that bird tonight was sitting at the dinner table just all wrapped in bandages and was like, hey, I'm just going to be spending some time in your house from now on. And now it can speak. Yeah. Boy, that would be fantastic. I mean, I'll never forget, right, Michigan Frog? Isn't that the name of the frog in the box? Yeah, Michigan J. Frog. Michigan J. Frog. Hello, my baby. Hello, my honey. Hello, my right hand. What was the lesson of that particular bird? I don't know. I don't know. Another cartoon episode? I don't know. But every time, yeah, he said, it was somebody who, he was like, oh, my God, you got to hear my, it's like saying I have a friend who's really funny. Watch. And then they don't say anything funny. I have a frog that can sing. Watch. And the frog doesn't sing around anybody else. And then he rents out Carnegie Hall. And the frog just goes, ribbit. And he's like, what? Remember that? And then he got his own network, the WB. That's right. The WB, yeah. And then he got his own, and then he got the W, W, W, WB. Yeah. I remember that show. So. How's everybody this morning? Good. Scotty's birthday is coming up. I'm going to take him to the Lucas Museum. Oh, wow. Boy, speaking of Scotty, that's Scotty. You played us that music that he wrote for the college there. I mean, it's just like, that was stunning. Stunning, stunning stuff. Thanks, thanks, thanks. It's like John Williams. I said, I thought it was John, I thought it was, when I walked in, you guys were playing it, and I thought it was John Williams. He recorded it with the John Williams Orchestra, basically. Yeah, like a lot of people who play it on a lot of, for John Williams. It's a compliment. I mean, it's really good. Yeah, yeah, it's great. It'll come out. Thanks for saying that. It'll come out, like, in a month or so. Like, he'll post it and all that stuff. And so, you guys, you're taking him to the Lucas Museum. The Lucas Museum, yeah. Didn't that thing just open? I just read an article about that this morning. Yeah. Yeah, more banana. So, yeah, you just gave me shit, and then you fill your mouth, and then start talking. Yeah. No, do it. Do the gross banana sound. Do it. Do that. No, I can't. Respectable guest. No, you're doing it. No, you're doing it. Don't worry. But, so, this episode is. We're in October. This episode is brought to you by October. And the Lucas Museum opened a couple of weeks ago. It opened on his birthday. Yeah. And I'm very excited to go see that. Yeah. Yeah. So, you're going to the opening on his birthday. We can't. We're going to be in London, but we're going to come back after that. But what are you going to do with your pocket protector? Yeah. What kind of outfit will you guys be wearing when you go to the Lucas Museum? Oh, full, like, cape. Tatooine. Yeah. Some sort of a loose-flowing robe. Oh, he's got the Tatooine hat on. Yeah, I do. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, I'm super, super excited. Yeah. You know, I hear there's not a lot of Star Wars stuff in there. No, uh-uh. You'll be hard-pressed to find something in there. No, no, truly. I think JB was being serious. I'm being serious. No, I just saw a video of it. Somebody took a video that was already in it. And there's tons of Star Wars. Of course, there's tons of Star Wars stuff in there. All right. Just the article. I read. Jason, you just caused a panic in the nerd community. I was like, what? Why would we go? Or maybe what they said was. I'm calling my congressman. Not as much as you would think. It is much more about the. No, you're making all this up. I was reading in the New York Times this morning. Oh, really? Okay. Another bite, for sure. Sorry, Jason, go ahead. Another bite of that. The karma is so instant, it's fucking bananas. And then I'm going to move into this, my aloha bar. Aloha bar. Those bars are great. They're just filled with stuff you don't know. No, there's plenty. Why not just eat whole food? They describe it all in the back. These aloha bars, everybody, is the best. Those are your snacks. You know what I had for a snack before bed last night? Let me guess. Let me guess. Can we guess? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dumplings. No. A gallon of caramel corn. Nope. Molasses. No. Hot wings. A can of sweet peas with butter. What? I'm sorry, what? An entire can of peas. Wait, wait, what are sweet peas? Sweet peas, like a can of peas. That's something I call somebody. Can of peas. Are you, are you, were you, did you go into your doomsday bunker and just grab an extra can? What happened? Did you get some tang? Did you make a big jug of tang while you were down there? Yeah. By the way, that sounds good, to wash it down. Wait, I don't understand. Where did you get a can of peas from? I stock my whole pantry with peas, because I like it as a snack. I just eat a whole can. True, truly. 100%. Like loose peas. Yeah, loose peas. Into, into a pot? Now do you, how, how are we doing it? Yeah, I put it on the stove in a, in a pot. Takes like two minutes to get it warm. With water. Warm, with water. And then you strain it and you put butter on it and then you eat it. Ate the whole thing. Sure. So, so you just love the taste of peas. By the way, by the way, Sean, again, again, we, it's not like we don't believe that you ate the whole thing. That's not the issue. The issue is. Or the butter. Or the butter. The thing, the issue is the thing itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing is something that's just, it's just always kind of there. Like parsley on a, on a plate and you don't pay it much. Brought to you by your friends at Del Monte. You don't really pay it much mind. I think that was them. But you made a whole meal out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I, cause they're sweet. I don't know. It's like a, it's like a sweet snack. Sure. Yeah. I love, don't you like pea soup? I do. Yeah. Yeah. This is a different. That's the soup. Yeah. These are solids. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, if our guest is still up. Yep. We're going to, we're going to fire up a conversation with him. JB, you sure you don't want, you don't want to just get rid of that aloha bar real quick? Let me just unwrap the aloha bar. No, I won't. All right. Now, fellas. Yes. I'm not sure how to properly introduce this guest this morning. To go through his credits. Now I'm nervous. Would take an hour. Oh, God. To mention his nominations and awards would take another. He's been a steady and consistent presence in our business. That is anything but steady and consistent. For over 60 years, he has managed to act. And produce some of the best, most entertaining, most respected, best remembered projects the business has turned out. But he's also worked at a gas station where he won, he won mobile man of the year. No, of the month. Do you hear a bird? I think the bird's okay. The bird's alive. He also did a full year of college at UCSB. Okay. A full single year. He was almost kidnapped at age eight and he's beaten cancer. He's got a new book coming out, covers it all in fine detail, but he's stopping by here today to give us a few bits and pieces. It's a great honor to have him here. Please welcome the man behind The China Syndrome, Wall Street, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Romancing the Stone, Falling Down, The War of Roses. Michael Douglas. What? Many great films, folks. Michael Douglas. Wow. Hey. Hey, guys. Douglas. Nice to see you. Michael Douglas. Nice to see you, too. Is it legend day on Smart List? I know, I know. What a troika. I mean, can I, I want to call you. - Yes, sir, can I call you Michael? - Call me Mikey, you can call me. - Mikey. It'll never be Mikey. Mikey, anything you want to chase? You know, going through your stuff, doing the modicum of research we do here, I'm just knocked out, sir. The amount of highest quality work possible that you've done with your time, as well as just commercial success as well, and the producing, and then just the life you've lived when you're off the set. I don't know how you've packed it all in. So thank God you've written a book about it. So happy you're here to share some of it. What's the name of the book? One Hell of a Ride. Okay, perfect title. That's great. Perfect title. That's great. Well, I mean, can we start near the beginning? I mean, I just, I would love to know, you know, obviously your father had a head start with things and showing you, what this business is about and what it could be. How early on did you think that you might want to do that as well? Not too early. No. No, I think probably being the son of, my mother was an actress too. Yeah, yes. And so I was aware of the business, but I know you guys would find this hard to believe, but we are a fairly self-involved group. And we like us. They talk about the order of, you know, God, our country, family, and then a career. But I think for us in our business, career kind of comes first. So my folks got divorced at a very young age when I was like about five. They'd just gone out to California. My father just started getting a movie career. And he, he probably kind of acted like a guy who had never seen a girl before. So it didn't take long before my mom would say, eh, eh, I don't think this is going to work out. I'll stay in New York. Yeah. So let's go back to New York kids. Yeah. So I basically grew up as a New Yorker. Yeah. As part of, as being part of the royal family, we had a small apartment on the west side facing the alley. It was on Central Park West, but it faced the alley. This was 1914. 48, 49. Yeah, Central Park West facing west is not great. No, not at this beginning. That's funny. And, and so I knew them both as, as, as working, working people and as you know, how anxious we all are to get a job. And they weren't ready to make those sort of, I think, choices between the family and stuff. So my early years were sort of bouncing back and forth between going to private schools, private schools in New York City, and all-boys schools and uniforms. And then going out to California on the holidays to visit my father, whose career incrementally was continuing to, to improve and beginning to get a taste of that Hollywood. Right. Did you get a, did you get a feel of that when you were back in New York and you're at the, you're at school, you must have, obviously your dad, of course, as you said, started to work more and more and be, you know, was a, a major movie star. How did that start to impact your life when you were back kind of living a New York life? Yeah. Well, you know, kids, kids are inherently nasty. Yeah. And the truth is-- That's true. There's our quote. I don't know, did any of you guys go to camp or anything? Oh, yeah. Sure, it was awful. Brutal. Awful, yeah. So inherently, if the kids know something more about you than you know about them, and then my kids, oh, his kid's a movie star. Oh, he must think he's hot shit, you know? Right. You haven't opened your mouth yet. You know, already, he's hot shit. So where you get him, so you already realize that there were pluses that went along with it, but the minuses were the fact that they had something on you. Right, yeah. They could make assumptions about who you were and what your background was, which was difficult to some point. So getting back to your question, Jason, I think that's why I thought this was the last thing that I wanted to be involved in. It was this sort of very kind of self-involved film. My mother was, you know, she was doing soap operas back east on stage, and so we had nannies are housekeepers and a big part of our life. Sure, but the life out there in Hollywood, you know, watching what your dad was doing, all the things that go along with it, was that the first draw to it, or was it more about the craft and the art and, because you did, you did study quite vigorously in New York and did a bunch of theater and like, so when was, at what point did the craft sort of motivate you into the career versus maybe the lifestyle, or was the lifestyle ever an attraction to you? No, I think the biggest advantage of being second generation is that lifestyle's not a surprise to you. Right, yes. You understand the insecurities, the foibles. I'm with my father and his best friend, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra. That's wild. You see them at night. That's crazy. You see them as real people, and their insecurities and this and that. So, you know, the reality to me was when I was in college and had to declare a major, and it's a little different what happened, Jason. I went to University of California, Santa Barbara, after going to boys' schools my entire life, right? Uh-oh. Including prep schools, all boys' schools. Uh-huh. I remember my senior year, you know, in prep school, you know, you have your college advisor. Uh-huh. And they always reminded me of, like, travel agents. You know, they had these brochures in their hands, and they would go through these brochures like a trap. And you'd sit there, and all of a sudden, "Wait, wait, wait, stop." And he pulled out this brochure, and there wasn't any Ivy League buildings or anything else. It was sort of a high shot of a guy walking down the beach carrying a surfboard in a bathing suit. And on either side of him was a girl in a two-piece bathing suit. Now, this was 1963. I had never seen back East a two-piece bathing suit in my life. Better yet, on a college brochure. So I said, "Hey, hey, hey." I said, "I'm going." That looks good. I'm going there, man. I'm going to go there. Didn't you get accepted into Yale? I did. Yeah, so, and you were like, "Yeah, but look at the bikinis." No, no, no. Jason, my asshole. My ass was so tight in boarding school that I knew I had to get it. Yeah, you had some catching up to do. The beaches in New Haven don't really stack up to the beaches in Santa Barbara. Exactly. So that was actually at 16 or 18 then. That was the first big decision and a crucial decision in my life because for a number of reasons. It was 1963, '64, Vietnam War is just beginning, East Coast is where the most political activity was going on, Berkeley was leading the ground, the other UC campuses were picking up on it, and also the hippie movement, which played a really important part in my life. So what happened after the first year of college at University of California, they politely said, "Look, I don't think you're ready for college yet. Why don't you take it?" It wasn't really kicking you out, but, "Why don't you take it? Why don't you take it? Why don't you take it?" You take a year off, a year break, and that's when I went to the mobile gas station in my hometown of Westport, Connecticut, and was the mobile man of the month. Oh, wow. Those were the days in the gas station. I mean, you guys don't even remember. Those were the days in the gas station when you went to get gas, they had your windshield wipers wiped. Yeah, check your oil. You had your oil was checked. Tires. You had your tire pressure checked. Yeah. Right. You know what you're reminding me of? Remember, you must have known this all too well. Do you remember the sound of that ding, they'd have that hose that'd go across when a car pulls in? They know they're there. Do you remember that, JB? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love that. That doesn't exist anymore. I don't know. It's nostalgic to me. It's true. That does not exist anymore. Yeah. I wonder. Michael, was there a name for that hose? Was it called the ding hose? I'm serious. Watch yourself, Jason. Watch yourself. Yeah. The ding hose. Let's see you eating that banana again, JB. Sean, you had a problem with your ding hose the other day. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. So what happened, what happened is I came back to college. After my year off, I came back to college. And I began. To Santa Barbara? To Santa Barbara. And begun to be involved with the, let's say, the artistic group on the campus. It was that group that held out, hung out in the corner of the student union in raincoats and dark coats and this and that. And was introduced to this, you know, this whole other world. And when I came back, went to the vice chancellor and said, well, you know, you've got to declare a major. I said, what? And by this time, man, by this time, I'd, you know, gotten into it a little bit, man. Yeah. And so I said, what do you mean? He said, you have to declare a major. I don't know, man. I said, and so I said, I guess. the only thing I know the most about is theater. You know, I know my dad, I watched this, so still never having an inkling about acting or anything like that. That was when I declared theater as my major and began my pursuit on that area, which I was not a natural at. No, but you seem pretty natural to me. I mean, I gather that, you know, you didn't learn how to be such a great actor in class. I bet you were, oh, obviously you were born with a lot of it. It's in your DNA. But can you recall the sort of your style and your ease with it and your talent with it growing over the years? And did you feel like you had enough under your feet when you went into, say, I would imagine the big launch was Streets of San Francisco. Did you feel that you were equipped enough to take on that role? Did that role and vault you into an ability to make a living in the business? No, no. No. Next question. I began with major, major stage fright. Okay. I could not go on, I could not walk onto a stage without a wastebasket right off stage, which I would puke into. Really? Before I go on the stage, I had total stage fright. And I never thought I'd be overcome. And the only reason, the only reason I think that I actually stayed at it was to try to overcome the stage fright. And what did it? So one big thing happened in here at this time was that after my sophomore season, my stepfather, William Darin, who I grew up with, was on the board of a new theater called the National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. And what they would do every summer is they would put on a show called The National Playwrights Conference. And they would put on like six new plays. And they had a small acting group that would, you know, would do these plays. And my first summer there, I was just sort of an apprentice kind of cleaning up. But what happened is then they sort of allowed me to be part of the company. And the focus was on the material, on the play. You were only there as an actor, as a tool to make these plays better. So you would sit there and you would run through the seats. Oh, wow. And you would sit there and you would run through the seats. You'd run through the show. Then you'd sit on the sidelines and listen to the notes that the director would be giving to the playwright in ways of how to improve the quality. Yeah. So at a very early age, right at the beginning, I learned that everything was the material. Everything was about the quality of the material. And that allowed you to get out of your head about the result of your performance. It certainly helped. It certainly helped, but it allowed me to help understand the choices that I made professionally later on, i.e. it wasn't about the part. It wasn't about who was doing it. It's about how good, I think this is going to be a good movie. And because I had these years of formation on it, and then I was, you know, so then after school, I was doing off-Broadway in New York and finally got a CBS playhouse, which they did on television, which turned out really, really well. And CBS back then had a film division. I signed a contract. I went out to California and proceeded to make five turkeys, five, five really shitty movies. One, the one I remember about it was because CBS also owned Radio City Music Hall. And the movie was shown at Radio City Music Hall. And this friend of mine, John, where he was one of the playwrights that I had met. Sure. Neil called me. I said, "John, did you see the show?" He said, "Yeah, yeah." "Well, what did you think?" He said, "Michael, let me just say there were more people up on stage with the Rockettes than there were in the audience." Yeah. You know, you know, not to sort of go back a little bit, but you know, it's interesting when I hear you as a young actor and you have that experience with the playwrights and that, and that, that process that must have helped you, carried you forward. Because you've had such a prolific career also as a producer and it must have, you had an early appreciation of what it is to build a thing that it's about them into all that stuff. Is that true? Is that accurate? That's exactly true, Will. And that's why I can't emphasize it enough of how important it was not looking for parts. So anyway, after these five turkeys, I'm sort of sliding into television and this is where, you know, we're good luck. You know, just good grace happens for you. Two things happened to me early in my career was I was doing FBI's and medical centers and this and that. And then Streets came up and Streets was a lawsuit that Quinn Martin, who was a very big time producer at that time, the Fugitive, Canon, Barnaby had all these shows that he did. They used to do. Quinn had this lawsuit with this brand new network called ABC. And he won the lawsuit. And the result of winning the lawsuit was a two hour introduction movie to the series and 26 hour episodes committed back in the first season. So they, you know, for a guy so my age said, Hey man, this is, this is a real great opportunity. It's a go show. And it starred Karl Malden and Karl Malden, you know, was worshiped by, by Marlon Brando. And it was just a, a, an unbelievably hardworking actor and a really good actor. So that was five years. I did 104 hours that I spent with Karl Malden and also structurally once again, preludes three acts prologues learning structurally and what your responsibility as an actor is and then working with different directors every week. And this was, was so, was so helpful and was, was a tremendous opportunity. And then that the God from God was handed down was the, was went for low of the cuckoo's nest, which was a project credible. My father had developed and gone back himself to Broadway to do the show. It hadn't worked out. I had read in college 20th century American literature, the book like everybody was taking acid. It was their favorite favorite, their favorite novel. And then as I was working their way and then I sort of overheard dad talking about selling the project when I was there and I said, oh man, I never thought about producing with that. Please let me try to get this set up. I'll try to get it set up, you know, with you playing the part with the production company and all this. So the original idea was for your dad to play the lead part, correct? Not you. Oh, correct. No, it was, it was, excuse me. How old were you at the time? And this is ambitious. Yeah, it was ambitious. I was, I started about, I was 23. Wow. I was 23 going on to-- Wow. When that movie came out? That's amazing. And the movie, by the time the movie came out, I was, I was 30. Okay. Okay. But he was so, he tried. So then he said, well, give me a year. Let me try to get it going. And so while I was doing Streets of San Francisco, which was being filmed in San Francisco, and we were shooting 26 episodes on location, so six, six days a week, right? Six days a week, eight, eight and a half months straight. I was a motherfucker. I mean, I was, I was, You're in every scene. You know, you couldn't ask for any harder work. At the same time, I was able to hook up with this, my partner Saul Zantz over at Fantasy Records in Berkeley, which is up there. So I would then go on over to, to Berkeley. We would work and nurture it. So by the time I'd finished the fourth season, we were able to make the movie. Wow. And they wrote your character off to free you up, to give you the time to do all the finishing work on the producing, yes? Correct, Jason. But the reality is, and we all know, I know you know, that, you know, for a network to say, I have a five-year contract with you, right? But we're gonna let you out. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen at all. Yeah. Well, what do you, what do you think you saw in that project that no one else saw? Because you did get a series of passes there. It did take a while to get it going. And then it go, then it does eventually go on to become the film that it is, wins all five major Academy Awards, and you're 31. And what do you, what do you, it couldn't have been blind luck. What do you think you saw in it that everyone else ended up finally seeing? I think I saw that it was a really, really good story. You know, a really classic good story. And I think I overcame everybody saying, you know, who wants to see another snake pit? Sure. That was the big thing. Who wants to see, no one wants to see a picture about crazy people. And I bought, later on I checked out and snake pit did very well. Thank you very much. It wasn't the thing that happened. But I think it was the innocence of not having, you know, it wasn't the thing that happened. But I think it was the innocence of not having, you know, having been burnt yet and making mistakes. And so all my partners sort of was the same way. so and we were strictly strictly an independent picture but uh we went you know and i remember so sol and i went to talk to the directors and most of them were up in the san francisco bay area and they were all kind of smug and you know we tried to talk to them they kind of kept their cards close to their vests you really couldn't feel what it was going to be yeah when did you get milosh foreman and we found a milosh and i remember looking something told me about milosh and a couple of his pictures his czech pictures one was called the fireman's ball which was yeah in one way was similar to cuckoo's nest and that all the characters took place like in one room and had the right sort of humor and uh milosh was in the middle of sort of a breakdown he's living in the chelsea hotel in new york and uh that's where they happen yeah he had a friend of his yvonne pastor also czech director and milosh would give yvonne pastor all his information about what he wanted yvonne to tell his shrink and then yvonne would go instead of yvonne and milosh would leave yvonne would go for for milosh to the shrink and uh share all the stuff and come back so the fact that when we got the script to milosh he flew all the way out to california and he sat down with us and my my place up in benedict canyon and opened the first page and he told us exactly what he wanted to do i remember and saul and i just started crying we were just like okay here's a man who's going to share with us but we want so much and so how about that when did jack nicholson come on board was that milosh's idea was it studio no it was no no we tried uh we tried to get gene hackman gene hackman passed at what point did your father what at what point did your father say yeah it's be for me go cast it that's that's not the way it went down okay wow no the moment came the moment came when i had to go to dad and say dad we got it going uh but you it's not going to be you playing mcmurphy wow how'd that conversation go yeah yeah you know careers had changed he was in his 60s by then okay and the business had changed and it took me even a long time i'm sure you guys don't realize you can count on three fingers the good parts you have in your life you know the really good parts you have in your life and this was this was a great part and he was hurt upset i mean i gave him half of our my producing deal which ended up being more money than he made than any picture he'd ever done in his life right sure wow which made things a little a little easier but uh it was the toughest thing i ever had to do you know i'll bet how long did it take to repair the kind of relationship after that um that's a good question you know i talked about it in my book you know uh a lot and i had the greatest adoration for my father um but he was rough uh when we were kids he was out of that he was out of that abusive abusive generation you know yeah you did something wrong you'd get slapped or big time yeah sure and um so we were you know we were pretty scared of him and and not to mention the fact that he just was this omnipotent character you know christ spartacus and the vikings he just larger than life and he had a temper that went along with it so our our relationship was not was cautious uh yeah growing up and my love for him grew and grew to the day he died in my admiration but in the early days um it wasn't there and that that and that seriously didn't help you know yeah yeah maybe maybe you mentioned this in the book i don't know i haven't i i really look forward to reading it but was was there a moment where you guys were able to sort of you got over it and you guys were able to reconcile did you ever have the i don't know what's the word closure that you wanted from it from from this experience yeah i i i we did i mean uh we did you know at a professional point in time which i think really was uh for me it was the year of the year of uh fatal attraction followed by wall street three months later and winning the oscar yeah what a year for me finally feeling like i stepped out of the shadow yeah yeah of this of this amazing guy you know i for the first time ever in my entire life about two months ago i watched wall street yeah oh wow i just saw it and i was blown of course i was blown away and you and you say michael there's three roles that are you know that an actor gets you've had i feel like you've had many i know i was gonna say there's an incredible run first of all you mentioned fatal attraction you can't you don't know how many times in my life i've used the expression i will not be ignored day right um but you you was there was there a moment what was that moment because you did have this incredible run of these great roles what what was the first coming out of cuckoo's nest as a producer and you've done streets you've done What was the first film role that you were like, okay, now I'm in a whole different league here now. You know, this is getting the attention, and now I'm getting offered the roles I want. Do you remember that? Was there a signature? Well, yeah, but here's the gate. I was an Academy Award winning producer, but I was a television actor. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You all know. Really still. It's gotten a lot better. But back then, man, it was two separate rails. You were in television, and I think before me, only I think it was Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood who had made that transition from then, from getting into films. So I got the Oscar. I'm set up at the production office as a producer, and I'm hanging on to what I realize is my biggest strength, which is understanding material, knowing good material, not worrying about my part. Not worrying. And you say good roles, but a lot of my movies, you know, Glenn Close had a great role. Sharon Stone had a lot of times it was never about my starring role. I just wanted to be in a good movie, and I figured it was better to be in. Yeah, but you shone through. You shone through no matter, even though you say that, despite you were, yeah, man, I mean, integral to all of those. It's what I've watched and studied and admired for so long. The thing that's so wrong about you, Michael, in your career is that it's so interesting to hear you put to words what I guess I've been absorbing, which is that you've always been servicing the film, the story. I've never watched you and thought, oh, this guy is doing me a favor and giving me a performance that he thinks I bought a ticket to come see. Right. No, like you've always behaved on screen. I'm assuming that the audience has bought a ticket to see the film, not you. Yeah. And so you've always just disappeared, and you've been us on the screen. You've been this trustworthy proxy that is experiencing whatever story is going on around you, and it's just been a real gift that you've given. I can just speak for myself. You've given me. You have been this great proxy, this great tour guide. That have brought me through so many great stories and environments and challenges and complications and decisions and successes all through your characters in these stories. It's just been stunning. I just couldn't imagine having a better career, truly. Jason, thank you very much. The one note that I hear more than anything else from people is, you know, when I see your name. And I don't know what it's going to be, but I know it's going to be good. That's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, what a compliment. And I remember hearing a story once this guy was telling about a big movie star. I'm not going to name names, but a big movie star went in. He was having, this was 30 years ago. And he went into a studio and a well-known studio executive, who we all know as well. And the movie star was saying, you know, and he came in late. And he said, I want to do this. I'm going to do that. And the executive stopped him and said, hey, motherfucker, I'll put the. Guard at the gate in your role. You're not the star. The movie is the star. Right. That's right. Yeah. And it always stuck with me, that story. Like that idea. It kind of goes back to what you were saying, Michael. Just always. Yeah. It's the story. It's the film. Right. And it's important. Even hearing you say it now, it's like, I've just absorbed that and been like, yeah, I got to remember that. I got to remember that. So starting after that, then, you know, I got a run of good productions. Because after Cuckoo's Nest, I had Romancing the Stone. Which I wasn't going to play the part. I couldn't get an actor to play the part. You know, I tried to get. And then finally, I was fortunate enough, the studio wanted Deborah Winger. It's another story. And then it worked out. And then finally, the studio, you know, had met Kathleen Turner. She'd done a sexy picture she made. No, not the heat of the night. With Bill Hurt. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I can see the poster. right now was that before or after china syndrome that was after and then china syndrome uh and originally i wasn't going to play the part richard dreyfus was going to play the third role such a great movie uh and then the jewel that i have so i had like four more hits as a producer i happened to be in them but didn't have parts but i had you know i was developing a movie called star man oh it's jeff bridges yeah i love that movie i wasn't approved i wasn't approved as the actor uh for no shit yeah no i'm pretty i was producing jeff was you know so there's still a lot of that for uh for a while we'll be right back and back to the show and then what was the thing that gave you the sort of the the box office juice to be able to be the film's star uh was was it was it that year of fatal attraction wall street in 87 yeah okay yeah that was that was really kind of where it it was okay it's put to bed now or at least i did i mean that's that bizarre to me to think to think that it was that late yeah i had some hostilities about it i mean i did about the well about the whole television thing versus feature film right but as a producer though you must have been cognizant of sort of minding the pocketbook and what what star could translate to a a presumed base level of ticket sales based on what they did in the last film and all that stuff so you you were probably aware a little bit of of what the studio's agenda might have been and how it kind of made sense even though it probably didn't feel any better but i was uh jason but i was so fortunate from the very beginning that i only went on um this this the best person forward or sure i mean i never ever took an audience's reaction to a film and i didn't have any reaction into it another picture like that would be falling down you know falling down which i i love this picture that you know nobody thought thought of it was you know your work at all but i just realized how important those years at the o'neill and then all those all those script episodes really just played such an important part in reminding me about structure telling me able to tell a good a good story and also the reality that if i didn't do the part man there's 10 other people that you know well you know most of these most of these incredible characters that you've played they're they're men who uh who are seemingly in control but they're they're they're really they're deeply flawed and and uh what what is it about those characters that for you make it so fun to play and to explore and and to kind of make your own i think it's just the the generation that i grew up with i think the vietnam war made the gray area who's the good guys who's the bad guys my dad's generations they had white hats and black hats yeah my generation oh it's been a little murky and i seem to be attracted to the you know the person exploring that yeah yeah because it does seem to be a little murky i think it's a little murky you seem like yeah you you're mentioning the generation before there was this um this this this artifice that that that the the male role needed to adopt or learn or carry um and and then you know you playing these parts where the the the fun for the audience is watching these these cracks in that veneer in that artifice and and seeing the vulnerabilities and the uh and the humanity in these in these uh outwardly seeming uh put together men yeah and but even looking back to to cuckoo's nest we could not find an actress to play nurse ratchet because the politics the politics for women at that time was you know you don't you don't want to be a villain right right oh interesting guys that's guys guys love the villain part right we oh man we want to play the villains the most uh interesting part back then and grant man bancroft colleen do hers geraldine page they all turned it down wow they didn't they didn't want to play play the uh play the part let me ask you guys a quick question yes sir with all of your successful careers man jason i've watched your wonderful actor but hell of a director man hell of a director too thank you sir sean what can i say you guys worked together on will and grace didn't you we did we got together yeah how did this how did you come about on this and then i just see that you're live at hollywood bold yeah this is a this is a biggest big thing man i mean it's who it's the greatest gift it's the greatest gift that's ever come to the three of us you know it was an accident we get to hang around and be idiots um and uh and we get to talk to folks like you and and and have these conversations and fortunately for us there's a bunch of people out there that are willing to listen to it yeah days like today or it never it never feels like a job but days like today talking to you is just it's unbelievable and yeah i mean and and like these are michael when you were on will and grace i would have never asked you these questions but now i'm not now in this form i wanted you so badly the producers told you not to all right yeah i was just like blown away that i was acting with you in the scene can i just add so you you do all this i mean you again as jason pointed out and we all know you have this incredible you know uh you all these incredible roles and all these incredible projects that you produced and that you shepherded and that you believed in when other people didn't and you do all this stuff and then you in the last i don't forget when you did the first one but you you kind of dipped your toe and went fully into the marvel world and all of a sudden you're doing a whole different genre of thing was that was that like uh did your was that just like just another gig or was like stepping into another world for you after all that you had done right well let me let me just back up uh a little bit it helps explain it so what i've done in the book you know obviously i've my childhood i think is pretty interesting in terms of my mother being a mother and i've been bermudian and my father a russian jew and how they came together at academy and and all that stuff and um and and growing up and but then what i decided to do as a producer a book that really meant a lot to me was a book called memo by david o selznick and if you ever get a chance or ever interested to know what a producer does read memo so what i thought i would do rather than just kind of continuing my history was i took 10 chapters and in i took 10 chapters i took 10 movies and i go in depth i mean i mean a whole length 30 40 pages on each of them talking about how it was created initiated what the steps were that came through it all what personal involvements there might have been in the making of it and so that takes up a a good chunk and then for me um i remember i got uh i got cancer i i got stage four cancer um and uh things weren't looking great yeah and so this is moving on after a whole crux of stuff and after my cancer and and uh and and after i survived and uh and got out of it i was fortunate enough to have this liberace project uh with steven soderbergh and matt uh damon behind the candelabra which was great and then i just said well look what haven't i done but what what what what do i want now what do i want to do now that now that mortality is a more of an interesting subject for me than it was before and i said well you know i've never done any green screen i haven't done a green screen picture and that was that was uh uh how that that's you know sort of started and uh so you know like they looked around the agents and um and the ant-man thing came up and and it was fascinating and i'm sure you guys are familiar with green screen but you know it's it's another type of acting it's it's it's it's interesting it's weird and some people are really good at it and then the other thing is they say what else happens you've done well i love comedy i love comedy i'm not particularly good at it but i know i just appreciate it i never know why it's not nominated for oscars every year yeah i mean we all appreciate comedians and and and funny people so the situation with uh with chuck lord allen arkin oh yeah the comiskey method yeah so i said man what a chance to to learn oh that's right you know fuck to learn the comedy i mean chuck lord allen arkin yeah so i did that i did that yeah and then finally i mean i said i've never done a green screen picture before i've done a period picture every movie i make is about contemporary situations and all of that so the ben franklin series uh came up eight episodes took all year that and after that i realized i was tired you know deeply tired and i took a look but a lifetime a lifetime of tired and i sort of stopped working not retired stopped working but i love not working i love not working well it's given you a chance to to sit and review uh how well how well you have spent your years i mean good you know what michael Well, we ask a lot of that. It's funny, you just answered a thing. We ask a lot of people. We say, you know, you've done this and you've been, you're known for this genre or whatever. And we say, is there anything that you haven't done? And I like the idea that you kept asking yourself, what is the thing I haven't done? And really gone for it. And there's a sort of, I think that's a great way to approach it, right? To like, well, how can I challenge myself now? I mean, is that what you would say to young actors to have that mindset? Well, I don't know what to say to them now, but it's so damn tough. It is so damn bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's no, I mean, casting, you don't see a casting agent anymore. You've got to write yourself tape. They don't even have offices anymore. You go in and see your casting agent, you know, and they get to know you. It's so tough. I've got three kids, all who are actors. They're doing okay. But it's tough. But to finish this off, so all that happened, then back when I had the cancer, there was a guy named Shane Salerno who did a rewrite for me really early on, and I was shocked how few people reached out to me with cancer. Maybe it's something about cancer. They don't want to get, you know, but nobody, no, you get much better. Shane, who I hardly knew, he every day would write me these, you know, you can do it, kick it, you're going to make it, you're going to be fine. No, you can't get. Anyway, so Shane's got a literary agency kind of company now, and then he just, he just kept pushing me, hocking me about doing a book, and doing a book, and then I thought about it, and I think, you know, between Dad and I now, we've got 90 years, 90 years in the film industry, 160 movies. My dad was a very prolific, he wrote about 10 books. So just for a legacy, I figured, you know, I would keep it going for a legacy to write the book. And then also for my memory, because you forget a lot. Were you happy with your level of recall? I have a hard time remembering last week. But what was that process like? I would imagine you wouldn't know how good it's going to be until you start getting into it. But it sounds like it's crystal clear on all of this incredible detail. Jason, I'll tell you my secret right now. Hire someone to start looking, going back over your diary, and just start placing, and then once you get together, each year, because you have no idea, I have no idea. And then in the book, I talk about it a lot, where the years of some heavy drug use messes up. And be careful what you wish for, because all of a sudden, I had a big production company, I could finance movies, I had people running it, I had lost that ability to pick one thing at a time, and I was a little overwhelmed, you know, had issues with my son, I was in federal prison for seven and a half years, my first marriage, so I look back, and I'm happy to talk about the demise, the downfall of cocaine, for one. Yeah, same, same. When you do look back, and you've written this book, and you talk about all these things, and these are just life, right? I mean, these are things that happen in life, and I feel like now we're all in our mid to late 50s, and we could play, easily could play 40s, right, Jimmy? - They're good, yeah. - 30s, late 30s, maybe, yeah. - But, you know, when you look back, are you, despite the things, the great success, and tough times, when you look back, do you go like, "Hey, you know what?" It kind of, you feel okay about it in that way? Like, do you feel-- - Oh, shit, yeah. I mean, well, first of all, you know, Hollywood royalty, I mean, you know, which really, this Netbo thing really pisses me off, because I don't know a career where a father or mother don't try to help their son or daughter get into their business, and this and that, and why they picked on this, because of the well-known aspect of it. But, yeah, no, I, like I said, what a ride, man. It's been unbelievable, and other than too much drug abuse, I can't, you know-- - Sure. I was gonna say, it's funny you say the Netbo thing. It's like, we don't chase down when we see a plumbing truck that says, "McGlinnan Sons." We don't go, "Hey, you Netbo assholes!" - Well, that's what I was gonna say. It's not exclusive to the entertainment industry. There are sons and daughters of-- - It's everywhere, but they make it like it's like, we're the only one, you know? - Well, you manage to weather that all very well, seemingly. Is there something that you can say to the children of-- - To our kids? - Of parents, our kids or, you know, kids in the entertainment, but kids in any industry that feel like they might have a burden of living through or up to the shadow of the generation before them. Is there something that really helped you navigate that as successfully as you did? - Recognizing good material. I mean, not counting on, I mean, getting something. The problem that we all have is we don't play an instrument or we don't paint or we don't write. You know, we're standing there, but a good piece of material, man, a good piece of material helps things along well. - But personally, that sort of conversation you have with yourself about, am I even going to try to live up to or even exceed what has come before me? What was it that you identified in yourself that gave you kind of the inner strength, you know, the inner strength to do that? - I think it was inherited from my father who had incredible stamina, tenacity, was a motherfucker. And, you know, was just really, really, really tough. And could, you know, hang on there. This is, as we all know, this is not a business if rejection is going to bend you over, you know? Rejection is the fuel. I think it makes you tougher and stronger. And I think you have to create your own identity. You have to trust in yourself rather than try to become an image of a relative. - That's true for life, yeah. - Because for all this stuff, I'm 82 now, and I've just recently said, hey, man, with all this stuff, there's not a lot of two-generation movie stars. You know what I mean? - No, sir. - I can't name any. So, you know, pat yourself on the back, man, and, you know, you can get out. - Fuck, yeah. - Well, you, sir, that would have been another great alternate title for your book there. A big, big pat on the back, 'cause my God, you did well. - I tried. I was gonna call it Before I Forget, but. - Wait, wait, that's a great title. - But they all said, what, what, they think he's got Alzheimer's? What's his problem? They all said, well, take it from me. - What? - You mentioned that you had somebody go through all your diaries and stuff, but I actually legit wanna know, have you been good about keeping a really good diary all these years of stuff that you've done? - Oh, no, I have no diary at all. I mean, I just have my secretaries, you know, my address, my address, where I, I mean, I forget what year, I mean, a movie, and then slowly doing that, and then I was fortunate enough to work with enough actors who had better memories than I did. - Oh, great, yeah, for sure. Great. - Well, listen, I'm gonna let you go, and I cannot thank you enough for doing this and talking with us. - Really cool. - And I know once I read the book, I'm gonna thank you again for putting it all down on paper. So huge, huge thanks to all you've done, including this hour with us today, sir. - Yeah, thanks, Michael. - Thanks, Jason Shaw. - I'm glad it's real. - Well, appreciate it, guys. You do a wonderful job. So keep it up. - Yeah, thank you. - Hollywood Bowl, okay, okay, yeah. - Food new. - We'll see you there. - Take care. - It's been a thrill. - All right, bye-bye. - Thank you, sir. - Thanks, Michael. - Bye-bye. - Bye. - Well, that was, we didn't even get to Fatal Attraction. - How do you? - We didn't get to Basic Instinct or The Game. - I know, I know. - I wanted to ask him about Fatal Attraction. - I will not be ignored, Dan. - His relationship with Danny DeVito, that's still his roommate. - I know, Jason, Jason. - I wanted to ask, but I didn't know. - Let's bring him back. Let's do a two for this guy. I think Michael Douglas needs a minimum two episodes. - Yeah, for sure. - It's really stunning what he's done. - Well, it's funny, when he was on Will & Grace, and I was like, I want to ask him about all that. And then now he's on today, I was like, I want to ask him about all that. And I didn't do either. - Can't do it. - No, but-- - Gotta read his book. - Yeah. - Yeah, I guess you gotta read his book, which will, but it's just, it's stunning. And he was saying, you know, yeah, it's hard to come out, to step out from the shadow of somebody like Kirk Douglas. It's, you know, like as he said, Spartacus, for Christ's sake. Just not alone. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. He not only did it, I mean, he did it-- - Exceeded his father's legacy. - Yeah, he really did. And because he had so many roles that were so different, and were so long lasting over so many decades and generations of people who appreciate him as a movie star, it's remarkable, truly remarkable. - I always reference Fatal Attraction as the perfect movie scene to scene. Like, just the way it's built is incredible. And you know the different ending, right? - Is that Adrienne Lynn? yeah Adrian Lyne what's that yes the director yeah he's amazing but you know she wasn't shot in the fucking head at the end originally she killed herself she sliced her own neck oh wow really yeah and you can see it online did they shoot it they shot it yeah you can watch it yeah it's wild so they tested that and it didn't that's exactly right and the audience is like well that's not very satisfying I want to see her get killed by you know somebody else oh wow and so yeah it's wild to see it because she and then she frames him because his fingerprints are on the knife that she kills herself with and then the cops show up got it yeah oh and and you know the other thing is she had a really solid alibi bye bye that was so fast bye smart less smart less smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbico Michael Grant-Terry, and Rob Armjarff.