Michael Douglas (Actor)

"After the second week of shooting 'Wall Street,' Oliver Stone came into my trailer and asked me if I was OK. I said yes, and then he asked me if I was doing drugs and I said no. Then I asked him why he asked that question. He replied, 'Because you look as if you've never acted before in your life." - Douglas quoted in Hollywood Life, March/April 2006

"Douglas has become the John Wayne of the gender war movies, the Indiana Jones of the men's movement." - Bruce Newman in New York Newsday, Dec. 4, 1994

"For whatever reason, I've always been attracted to ambivalent characters. I like the grey area. I don't see many heroes. I've always been interested in people having more of a moral flaw and trying to get redemption." - Douglas to Empire, September 2006

"He's tough but he makes decisions and he knows exactly what he wants. If you have a problem, you go to him, he knows what you're talking about and he'll give you a decision. A lot of them in this business are tough and totally useless. A lot of them I can't find for a week. Michael wasn't always Mr. Nice Guy, but he was always there. He called me a son of a bitch; I called him a son of a bitch, but as a producer he's as good as any. He's got all the things you can love and hate in a person." - a veteran of the "Romancing the Stone" crew, quoted in The New York Times, Dec. 3, 1989

"I love my work, but right now the United Nations is motivating me much more. Anywhere I go in the world, people will know me, and I'm enjoying using that opportunity. Sometimes you can reach people on the entertainment page with things they might glide over in the rest of the paper. And people in government are relieved to talk about movies for a while before you broachthe real topic." - the newly appointed Minister of Peace, Michael Douglas to The Guardian, Oct. 15, 1998

"I think I've found a way to marry my two careers, which have always been on separate tracks to a certain degree. When I had my success as a producer, people always wanted to know why I wanted to be an actor. And when I got some success as an actor, people asked me why I still wanted to produce. It's always made some people uncomfortable that I won't just be one thing or the other." - Douglas on his Hollywood double duty, quoted in The Los Angeles Times, Dec. 4, 1994

"It's a corny image, but I think of my life as a surfer. A surfer sits out there, and the waves come in sets and you've got to be ready for the waves. I've gotten pretty good at not pushing things. If things aren't there in my personal life or professionally, I rest. But when the waves come, they come in sets of five, three or seven. Then you've got to be ready to go." - Michael Douglas to Daily News, Feb. 13, 2000

"There's a dark side to Michael that people are attracted to, and they know when they see a movie with him, there's going to be an edge to it. If someone else played the part, audiences wouldn't accept such a flawed character." - Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitors Relations Co. Inc., quoted in Us, August 1998

"When we were going to have a baby, we knew a bounty hunt would happen. So when we were contacted by a magazine about doing a layout, paying us for it, then syndicating the photos, a fairly common practice in Europe as opposed to here, we simply saw it as a way to build financial security for our son and control what was going to be a madhouse. I'd rather do that than have some guy harrassing us, though that happens anyway." - from Movieline, December 2000/January 2001

Douglas on taking a pay cut to do "Wonder Boys": "I think what happens is that at a certain point in your life and career, whatever commercial success you've had, the desire just to do good work becomes more important. I've seen too many actors around my age group who've said, 'OK, let's just cash in; let's do four or five movies a year' and all of that. I'm not interested in that." - quoted in The Daily Telegraph, Sep. 23, 2000

Douglas underwent treatment for alcohol abuse in September 1992.

His official website www.michaeldouglas.com was launched on February 1, 2000; the fan club fee is used to fund a foundation dealing with international concerns.

In 1998, he was awarded the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government.

Named Man of the Year by Hasty Pudding Theatricals of Harvard University in 1992.

Received UCLA's Spencer Tracy Award in 1990. His father was presented with the same honor in 1999.