Choosing a Role

As the light of the day slowly begins to fade, Douglas muses metaphorically about how he decides which film he wants to work on. "Choosing which movie to do is a lot like falling in love with a woman," he says, the twinkle in his eyes attempting to disguise just how seriously he takes this process. "I don't know how well you analyse what qualities of a woman you are looking for, as opposed to what hits you in the face. You are attracted to her, you are attracted to a project. You then, because you are a little older now, don't impulsively go out and get married, i.e., commit to a project, but you find out about it. How many times do you find yourself thinking about it? Do you have to have a paper and pen by your bed at night? Do you wake up thinking about her, about the project? And if she stays with you, that project, and you can't get enough of her, you're hooked and you know you gotta do it. You gotta go and make that movie. If the initial infatuation wavers and wanders, you know that you don't want to make that commitment."

Producer

His producer's résumé is equally impressive, balancing box-office success and critical acclaim with social relevance. "Sure, I like producing. I like the development process and control and being involved in it. I'll do it once in a while. But I'm very different than a lot of guys. A lot of the guys love the control factor. They want the whole thing. I think that's presumptuous. I welcome and I try to encourage everybody else to do their best work and I try to keep my ego in line. I try not to bury everybody that's around me, and I try not to throw my weight around. I want to make everybody else as good as they can be. "There are some actor-so-called-slash-stars who are in a position to control the production. And they make a mistake of confusing their stardom with good film making," Douglas says. "And they think that because they are a star, they can get directors whose vision they can control and therefore feel that the movie will make a better vehicle for them as an actor. Because of my career as a producer, all I want to create is the best movie possible. I want to work with the best director possible, and usually that person couldn't disregard my ego or what I want to a certain degree. They have a very strong vision of their own, and that vision is what I'm betting on."

Love for Acting

With acting his true love, the lesson that Douglas would like to learn at this phase of his career has to do with allowing himself to be "creatively selfish," to think a little bit more like an actor and a little bit less like a producer.

"I tend to think in terms of the movie as a whole, first. I want to make good movies, which, as an actor, I'll be a part of. But sometimes I cut myself short as far as an actor is concerned. I don't get a chance to be as selfish as I want to be because I'm always trying to make it work for everybody else. While a writer is alone with their word processor, or a painter is alone in a studio, or a musician is working on a song, movie making is a big kind of collaborative family. Certainly it starts with the written word, but then it becomes a collaborative art and that process never ceases to amaze me. It's almost mystical. It's something that is really alive and fresh.

"I think for me, my success was in two very distinct phases. One was obviously producing Cuckoo's Nest, and the other – winning an Oscar at 31. Unlike an average profession, acting usually comes in concentrated doses. When you're an actor, it's anywhere from two and a half to five months of intense work and then it's done. That's the hardest part of filmmaking. There is no audience response, so you really don't get any immediate satisfaction," says Douglas.