Michael Douglas
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' which my father had tried to get made for six, seven years, and I for four, was turned down by every studio. Every studio in the world had passed on it.
'Five Easy Pieces,' 'Easy Rider' - those are indie pictures; those were not studio pictures. They had relationships with studio distribution, but they were indies.
The studios basically, besides developing some material, their strength is distribution. Distribution in any other business is a cost that you incur. You know, in a trucking business, you eat it. In a film business, distribution is a profit center.
My mother is Bermudan, so I had a lot of memories when I was a kid, used to go down to Bermuda a lot.
Every empire eventually falls.
'King of California' was just, I thought, a really great, fresh, original kind of script. I loved the tone, the mix of tragedy, comedy, and drama, and that it was a good part.
With 'Black Rain,' I spent a lot of time with homicide detectives, and I spent a lot of time with different brokers on 'Wall Street.' It helps get the rhythm of the piece and the tone, and how overplayed or underplayed it might be. That's also the magic of movies: You get to hang out and live these different lives.
I've just kind of been used to carrying movies. I look back and I'm just used to being in every single scene in a lot of pictures.
I don't look good in tights. I know that.
I don't wish ill will on anybody.
Cancer didn't bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.
I'm impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work.
I come from a tough stock.
I believe there is a spirit within us, which we nurture based upon our efforts and what we bring to the world. But it doesn't come from the outside; it comes from the inside.
My dad was a movie star. Having that name was good and bad. People think it's a silver spoon. It's not.
I don't know about Brad Pitt leaving that beautiful woman to go hold orphans for Angelina. I mean how long is that going to last?
The one thing that men and women have in common - they both like the company of men.
Do you know what absolute happiness is? For me, it is to wake up my kids in the morning - these little pieces of innocence - to wake them and find they're so happy to see me! It is unequivocal love, no question about it.
I'm a risk-taker. Most of my career has not been a joyful experience, but it has been challenging. I like the dangers.
My movies are usually about stripping off the makeup, getting down to the skeleton.
Like a lovely orchid, or anything else that's nurtured, marriage prospers and grows, but if it's ignored, it withers.
I love kids, and I love having had this second chance to have a family.
In the movie 'Wall Street' I play Gordon Gekko, a greedy corporate executive who cheated to profit while innocent investors lost their savings. The movie was fiction, but the problem is real.
In 'Wall Street,' Charlie Sheen carried that movie.
Sometimes art imitates life.
I was there the night John Lennon was shot, three blocks away. It left a lasting impression on me.
Early on, someone had told me, 'You know, the camera can always tell when you're lying.' And, Jesus, that intimidated me. 'The camera can always tell? How am I going to do this?' Until one day I thought, 'Wait a minute, acting is lying. Acting is all about lying.'
Our economy is increasingly dependent on the success and integrity of the financial markets.
When you're making pictures out of heartfelt passion, it hurts when someone calls them a calculated business move.
A lot of actors get concerned about their own image, even going so far as to rewrite a movie to best serve that image. All I want to do is be in good movies.
I've always tried to kind of stretch my wings as an actor and do things that are different.
Actresses have more fear of being disliked. I, on the other hand, revel in it.
There's nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life.
For an actor, it's great fun to play one of these hungry white sharks. Audiences love to hate them.
Everything's so repressive now - it's the No generation. You can't do anything, you can't eat anything, you have to abstain.
I met Michael Milken for the first time with Oliver Stone at the Drexel Burnham offices in Los Angeles.
When you are a celebrity, nothing remains secret for very long.
I enjoy provocative things that are questionable.
Actors, I have to say, most of the time, they elevate things; they don't screw things up most of the time.
Directors have so much else to do besides tell actors what to do. There are so many issues and problems.
The message from national security experts and citizens around the world is clear: The only way to eliminate the global nuclear danger is to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
Control is what gives you privacy.
The arts are a celebration of life.
I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.
Liberace was one of the biggest stars in America. He was a kind of a phenomenon.
Directing talent is very nebulous. You know, it's not in front of you like an actor's performance.
Of course I feel blessed that I have a wife that is 25 years younger.
I don't know if likeable, pleasant characters have enough conflict for me to want to do them. I admire those people, but I've never been that kind of screen presence who can do nothing. I need to do something.
I grew up on the East Coast and was going to go to an Ivy League School, but at the last minute I decided to be a hippy. It was the protest movements on the war, peace movements were going on at our university. It was a fantastic time.