Michael Douglas has explained why he hasn’t taken up an acting role since 2022 after a career spanning six decades.
The 80-year-old actor has had an incredible career, appearing in iconic films including Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Ant-Man, Franklin, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
After making his first on-screen appearance in 1966, the actor has explained why he thinks his 2025 role in Looking Through Water could be his last on-screen appearance.
While at the conference at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, Michael explained: ‘I have not worked since 2022 purposefully because I realised I had to stop.
‘I had been working pretty hard for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set. I have no real intentions of going back,’ he said per Variety.
He clarified: ‘I say I’m not retired because if something special came up, I’d go back, but otherwise, no.’
He then added that he does have ‘one little independent movie’ that he is ‘trying to get a script out of’.
But he concluded by saying that in the spirit of maintaining a good marriage,’ he is ‘happy to play the wife’ to his partner Catherine Zeta-Jones.
While at the conference, he also spoke about his tongue and throat cancer diagnosis in 2010 that he previously attributed to stress, his previous alcohol abuse, and years of heavy smoking.
‘Stage four cancer is not a holiday, but there aren’t many choices, are there?,’he said. ‘I went with the program, involving chemo and radiation, and was fortunate.
He added that had he needed surgery, his career would have been impacted: ‘The surgery would have meant not being able to talk and removing part of my jaw, and that would have been limiting as an actor.’
The actor has previously said that fatherhood is his priority rather than his career, as it once was.
‘My career was the most important thing in my life, followed by marriage and children,’ Michael told AARP The Magazine in 2010.
‘And it’s completely reversed now. I never anticipated starting a family and the joy of raising kids at my age.’
The actor has three children: a son named Cameron, 46, from his first marriage to Diandra Luker, another son named Dylan Michael, 24, and a daughter named Carys Zeta, 22, from his second marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones.
In 2010, he also told The Guardian: ‘During my first marriage, my career was the most important thing in my life.
‘I clearly know I made mistakes. There were absences. My eldest son, Cameron, is in the middle of a very, very difficult and tragic time. Cameron has made a couple of big mistakes in his life. He’s paid the price. On the other side of it, he’s sober. The kids really miss him, and he misses them. I’ve taken them to visit.
‘Now that my own priorities are entirely different, I’m always encouraging people to wait to have a family – get yourself sorted career-wise first as much as you can.’
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.