#2565 - Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, checking in.

Joe Rogan (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Michael Douglas (0:13)

Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

I've been a fan for a long time.

Michael Douglas (0:16)

Oh, wow, okay. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:17)

Appreciate that. Falling Down is one of my all-time favorite movies.

Michael Douglas (0:20)

Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:20)

That is such a crazy movie. I rewatched some scenes today, getting ready for it, and the scene where you confront the guy who's working on the highway and say, there's nothing wrong with this highway.

The thing that everybody a lot of times thinks, that they have these budgets, and if you don't spend all the money, then you don't get the money next year, so you got to tear up the fucking road. You take a bazooka out.

Michael Douglas (0:44)

I mean, the spooky thing I see about, I guess, the money is just how Matt meets up to today. 30 years, this is 30 years later, that's the thing that's sort of interesting but also depressing.

Joe Rogan (0:59)

It is depressing. You would have thought we would have figured it all out by now.

Michael Douglas (1:03)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:04)

Especially with the use of the internet. So much more information that was available than when you made that film.

Michael Douglas (1:09)

Right.

Joe Rogan (1:10)

The world's a totally different place, and yet it resonates perfectly.

Michael Douglas (1:13)

Yeah, well, thank you. Yeah, that's one of my favorites, too, that kind of dark comedy.

Joe Rogan (1:19)

Yeah, I mean, it was a dark comedy, like, and there's parts, completely caricaturist, unsympathetic characters, like the guys in the golf course.

Michael Douglas (1:28)

Right.

Joe Rogan (1:28)

Where the guy dies because he freaks out of his heart attack, and you go, I guess you're going to die.

Michael Douglas (1:34)

I remember getting a studio calling me down, Mr. Toor Warren, went down to the office, might get to come down, and I came down to the office, and I was introduced to Mr. Ho, who was chairman of the Korean Grocers Association. And they said, we have a real beef here, you got a scene here where you're knocking up a Korean grocery store, an attitude, and all that. And I said, well, I didn't write the script, but you gotta understand, there must have been something in it that hit people, triggered it, because that was a scene. And so he listened to me, bless him, and I was back in New York about three weeks later in my local Korean grocery store, and they were wearing smile buttons.

And I thought, okay, there you go, it made a dent.

Joe Rogan (2:24)

Well, it almost became like a symbol, you know, of don't fuck with me, I'm ready to crack.

Which I think a lot of people resonate with. I even had a guy come on the podcast dressed as you in Falling Down Once. Brought the suitcase and everything.

Michael Douglas (2:42)

That was a little... He did it... Probably first came down before he got close.

Joe Rogan (2:46)

He did it for fun.

Michael Douglas (2:47)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:48)

But it was fun. It was hilarious. But you you've been in a ton of insane movies. What is it like to write a memoir? That's got to be a weird feeling to like relive your life and try to be as honest as you can and put it all down.

Michael Douglas (3:04)

Yeah. No, I resisted it for a long, long time.

And then, well, it was sort of after I had cancer about 16 years ago, stage four, you know, wasn't good. I lost a couple of friends at the same cancer. I had Larry Hagman, I remember from Dallas, the show, and Nick Ashford, Ashford and Simpson. And, you know, I wasn't sure. And I talked about it. And I was stage four, and nobody, my friends, they kind of abandoned me, you know, a lot of friends. And I realized with cancer, people don't quite know what to say. And at stage four, they don't know if they're coming to say goodbye or this or that.

Joe Rogan (3:52)

So they just avoided you?

Michael Douglas (3:53)

They kind of, yeah, they kind of just, yeah, it was kind of quiet while we're going through the chemo and the radiation. Happens to a lot of people because they just don't quite know where it's all going. So this one guy though, Shane Salerno, who I worked with on it, who was a screenwriter and he had done an adaption of a script for me a long time ago and I didn't, it's hard to remember him. And he started sending me these notes, sort of like a coach, you know, just these little notes you kick it at, you can do it, you can do it. I just remember being really touched by it. And then afterwards he got into more of being a literary agent and he kept asking me to write a book and all of that. And I was busy. But then after the cancer things kind of slowed down.