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During a appearance at the film festival in Karlovy Vary in Czech, where he presented a newly restored version of “One Flew over the cuckoo nest”-for the production he was awarded an Oscar in 1975-the 80-year-old Michael Douglas was asked about his future plans as an actor.
Douglas’ last roles are years ago
“I have deliberately not worked since 2022 because I realized that I had to stop” said Douglas (via “Variety”). “I worked quite hard for almost 60 years and didn’t want to be one of these people who fall over dead. I have no real intentions to return. I say I’m not in retirement. Because if something special would go back. But otherwise: no.”
Douglas was last seen in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” on the big screen in 2023 and in 2024 played the leading role in “Franklin”, a biographical Apple TV+series about Ben Franklin. Both projects were turned off three years ago. And since then Douglas has not worked in front of the camera.
The actor indicated that there was “a small independent film” from which he “tried to get a good script”, but apart from this project, he has no further plans to return to the film, and was “happy to play the wife” alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones. “I am happy that Catherine works – and she is very busy,” he said.
Fight against cancer influenced his decision
The topic of Douglas’ future came up after the actor spoke about his fight against tongue cancer. He said his treatment decision had made it possible for him for another decade. “Cancer in stage 4 is not a vacation. But there are not many alternatives, do I? I did the program with chemo and radiation. And was lucky,” said Douglas. He added that his friend and fellow actor Larry Hagman died of a similar diagnosis.
“The operation would have meant that I could no longer have spoken and had to have part of my jaw removed. And that would have been very restrictive as an actor.”