Michael Douglas has no intentions of returning to acting: “I realised I had to stop”
Veteran Hollywood actor Michael Douglas has revealed that he will likely never star in another film, as he has “no real intentions” of returning to acting.
Douglas was speaking at a press conference at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, in a special 50th anniversary celebration event for his seminal film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, when he said he would only act again if “something special came up”.
The 80-year-old said: “I’ve had a very busy career. Now, I have not worked since 2022, purposely, because I realised I had to stop,” referencing his most recent role as Benjamin Franklin in the Apple TV+ series Franklin, which was filmed that year and released in 2024.
He added: “I’d 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,” before noting, “I’m very happy with taking the time off. I have no real intentions. But I say I’m not retired, because if something special came up, I’d go back. But otherwise, I’m quite happy. I just like to watch my wife [actor Catherine Zeta-Jones] work.”
Like many people his age, Douglas is now leaning into a slower pace of life, as he said: “I’m not pursuing work. My golf game is getting better.”
It comes some 15 years after the actor experienced a significant health scare, as he underwent extensive treatment for stage four throat cancer in 2010. In the press conference, he explained he was “fortunate” to avoid surgery, which “would have meant not being able to talk and removing part of my jaw … that would have been limiting as an actor.”
Elsewhere, Douglas also took aim at current US President Donald Trump, as he claimed the country’s politics was “flirting with autocracy.”
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