• 3 days ago
Sharon Stone … Paul Rudd … Jane Fonda … Jack Nicholson …

Michael Douglas, Palme d'or d'honneur recipient for the Festival de Cannes, gives us the tea.

#Cannes2023
Transcript
00:00Bravo, bravo, Oliver.
00:02Yeah, yeah, there'll be nudity, huh?
00:04The so-called f*** of the century.
00:09If I try to be objective about my father
00:13and look at him afar,
00:15he had more stamina, more energy,
00:20more intensity than almost anybody
00:23I've ever seen in my life.
00:25I admired him so much because he used to ask me,
00:28do you think I was a good father?
00:31And he was, eventually,
00:33because as his career dwindled and he got older,
00:39and he had a couple of serious accidents,
00:40he had a stroke,
00:42and then he had a very bad helicopter accident
00:45where he survived,
00:47and some other people were killed.
00:50He asked himself, why am I still alive,
00:54and this 18-year-old pilot is dead?
00:57And he kind of returned to his roots,
00:59and he began working with a rabbi
01:02every week studying the Old Testament,
01:05and in my father's old age,
01:07he became quite spiritual, quite kind,
01:11and I love him and I miss him very, very much, very much.
01:15Sharon Stone, we were casting Basic Instinct,
01:21and we could not find an actress to play the part,
01:25and I don't know if you know Paul Verhoeven
01:27or if you've ever had experience with Paul Verhoeven.
01:32He's sort of a Dutch Calvinist director,
01:37and when he would interview the ladies for the parts
01:40for the movies, he'd go, yeah, yeah,
01:42there'll be nudity, huh?
01:44There'll be nudity, much, a lot of nudity.
01:46I say, Paul, you can't, you're not gonna get anybody.
01:49I was away in Europe,
01:52and Paul sends me a audition tape
01:57that he did with Sharon Stone playing my role,
02:01and she's fantastic.
02:04So we had a wonderful, wonderful working relationship.
02:08We had a lot of intimacy, I mean,
02:10to say the least, on camera.
02:14The so-called fuck of the century,
02:16we spent a week in bed.
02:20We got to know each other very well,
02:23but it's very, very sweet.
02:24Oliver Stone, extremely talented writer and director,
02:30and every actor has given probably their best performances
02:34with Oliver Stone.
02:35Why is that?
02:37Because he's tough.
02:40Most directors act like the patriarch, the father figure,
02:45and the actors are children.
02:48Oliver treats you like another soldier in the tent,
02:53like we're in Vietnam.
02:54He wanted Gekko to be a little meaner, a little tougher,
02:59and he was willing to have me angry at him.
03:02When you were shooting Wall Street,
03:04one day he said you're bad.
03:07He said I was bad, and I went to go look at the film,
03:12and I thought I was pretty good,
03:15and he said, yeah, you are,
03:18and I didn't know what he was doing, but I was not happy,
03:23and that's what I didn't realize until afterwards,
03:27but he was happy to have me just a little more angrier
03:30at him for the performance,
03:33and that, I think, is part of the reason
03:36why every actor we ever worked with
03:38gave their best performances,
03:39so bravo, bravo, Oliver.
03:43Paul Rudd is probably the nicest man in our industry.
03:50I love the combination of what a star he is,
03:55and he well deserves it.
03:56He's brilliant talent as a writer,
03:59and yet he's very self-effacing.
04:04He's very humble, great humility,
04:07a crazy Kansas City Chiefs football fan.
04:12We share our joy for football a lot.
04:14Everything that happens to him is well-deserved.
04:18I don't think he has an enemy in the world,
04:21and yet does not make him weak.
04:25He approaches work and life the way I do.
04:28You try to give the best situations you can.
04:32You try to make it as best as you can.
04:34You don't make it dark, you make it light.
04:38Jane Fonda, we shared the fact
04:40that we both were the products,
04:42the children of famous parents.
04:45Her father, Henry Fonda, my father, Kirk,
04:48and we produced together The China Syndrome.
04:53She's a lovely, lovely lady.
04:55I love the way she's talking about
04:57how happy she is in her 80s now,
04:59and I think she's encouraging a lot of people.
05:03Very, very bright and very strong,
05:08and I'm always, always happy to see her.
05:11Jack is an extraordinary, unique individual.
05:15In real life, he's a lovely man, but he's guarded.
05:20It's difficult to know in real life.
05:22When he gets in front of a camera,
05:26he uses that as an excuse to open himself up completely.
05:30For me, one of the big lessons for Jack
05:34is to learn about reacting.
05:36There's too many actors who wait for their line.
05:39They just wait, wait, and then they start to talk,
05:43but they don't listen, and he's a great, great listener
05:46and a wonderful actor.
05:48Thank you so much.
05:49I think that's all the time we have.
05:51All right, well, thank you.

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