By Hannah Hargrave
Michael Douglas got candid about his future over the weekend and opened up about his past health battles, his passion for acting and his marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Taking the stage at at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Michael, 80, revealed that while he hasn’t officially retired, he’s classed himself as such for three years now.
“I have not worked since 2022 purposefully because I realized I had to stop,” he said. “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. I say I’m not retired because if something special came up, I’d go back, but otherwise, no.”
Cancer battle
Prior to his comments, Michael touched upon his battle with throat cancer — which later turned out to be tongue cancer – in 2010, and confessed: “Stage 4 cancer is not a holiday, but there aren’t many choices, are there?
“I went with the program, involving chemo and radiation, and was fortunate. 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.”
His marriage
Fans were saddened by his retirement reveal but he gave them a tiny bit of hope when he said there was a “one little independent movie,” he’s “trying to get a good script out of.”
But he wrapped up his chat by saying that “in the spirit of maintaining a good marriage,” he is “happy to play the wife,” while Catherine continues to work in the entertainment industry.
Stepping back
Last year, during his acceptance speech for Master of Cinema 2024 at the Atlantida Mallorca Film Festival, he shared his plans to semi-retire, and to spend half a year in Spain.
He said: “It is an honor to receive this award in Mallorca, where I have been coming for 35 years and where I enjoy my time like nowhere else.
“I speak terrible Spanish, but I love this place more and more. Now I plan to stay here for six or seven months a year, although that doesn’t mean I have retired.
“What happened is that at the end of 2022 I finished filming the series Franklin and then I didn’t work. I continued resting in 2022 and was very happy. But I haven’t gone, I have instructed my agent to only call me if a very special role comes up.”