Exclusive Ant-Man Interview with Michael Douglas

When I found out that I would be interviewing Michael Douglas for his role as Hank Pym in Marvel’s Ant-Man while in LA, I was thrilled. After all, with over 50 movies under his belt, Michael Douglas is a Hollywood Legend! His smile was the first thing that caught my eye as he entered the room, well that and the fact that he looks even more handsome in person than he does on screen.

Michael Douglas exuded a confident yet relaxed demeanor that reminds you he has been around a while and knows what he’s doing.  He was a pleasure to chat with!

Now onto the interview…

Exclusive Ant-Man Interview with Michael Douglas

What was your motivation for joining the cast?

Doing something different…Two of my best buddies are Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito and each of them had a great time as the Joker and as the Penguin. I remember them talking about it and just never having been offered anything in this realm before, so when this came up (I thought) this will be great. This will be cool. I told my 14-year-old son all about it, and he was like my agent. He said “Dad, you know what? This is a whole new audience for you!”

Did you realize you were joining the Marvel universe?

I was drinking the Kool Aid! (laughs) I did and it was really interesting and fascinating to see the process and how it works. Early on, when we first started, they were consumed with the Avengers, coming out…and we were overlapping and we sort of felt like the orphaned kids for a while there… But they have an amazing way of working and it’s a great family…I’m happy to be part of the Marvel universe. I didn’t realize I had to get tattooed. (laughs)

Did you have to do research to prepare yourself to be this iconic Marvel universe character?

When they they sent me this script, they also sent me a lovely leather bound book with about two of the Ant-Man comics. So before I read the script, I opened that up and sort of familiarized myself with the different characters and a little of the back story.

What was your favorite scene to shoot?

I know the ones I liked least! (laughs) Those were the ones with heavy exposition. I had to carry a lot of the exposition of plot in terms of explaining how things worked and everything and there’s no rhyme or reason for those, you know. You just got to kind of get a momentum going and try to articulate them. The fact that Peyton, besides being such a good director, was an actor earlier in his life and knew my lines better than I did was a little intimidating, because if I stumbled or flubbed he actually knew these technical names where they got the ants names. But I enjoyed the Pym Technology scenes. I enjoyed seeing this huge picture of me up there on the wall.

What was it like working with this cast?

Everybody. We just did a press conference and what I wanted to really say, I produce a lot, too, so even when I’m an actor just getting hired in a movie like this, I kind of look at the whole picture. I saw that Kevin Feige and the great production were really happy with Peyton Reed as as a director. Those are all elements that you want, a strong producing background, script, and your director…

I think the biggest surprise was Corey. Corey was a great heavy. He was a great, great villain and in the scenes I had with him, he brought much more strength and dynamo than I ever had anticipated. He had this whole subplot of kind of me being his father figure and reaching out for my acceptance, which was haunting it had a real depth to it…

Paul, I knew from the beginning and he’s just as easy and wonderful as could be.

Evangeline, I did not know her range.

So you go wow! There’s, no weak spots here. Everybody’s solid. I felt, really optimistic about this whole project right from the get-go because I did not see a weak link anywhere.

What was it like working with Paul Rudd on set?

He’s just a sweetest, he’s a lovely guy. He’s very unassuming. Obviously, he did some rewriting on the script and was very helpful.

Sometimes I would get frustrated where I’d have one of these five minute long monologues explaining everything, and of course, he would have a one-line punch line.  I’d go ‘sure. I’m working my butt off. (laughs) Yeah, you wrote the script, didn’t you?’ But he’s got an elfish grin and quality about him. He was working out, maintaining, staying in shape, and then putting in the whole day. So my heart went out to him but he was fabulous.

Were you hoping to get an Ant-Man suit?

Well, yeah. I mean who’s to say I wasn’t in a few of those! (laughs) Hard to tell with the helmets down.

Considering the technology used in this movie, how is it different than anything you’ve ever done?

One of the exciting things for me about doing this picture is I have never done a special effects movie before. My entire career has all been contemporary story lines except for one movie out of I think 50. Everything else was contemporary and there weren’t any kind of effects in them, just a green screen.

There were like four units shooting. We were the first unit, then you had the second unit which was your stunt unit. Your third unit, which was your special effects, your green screen, and then your fourth unit was that macro unit, was shooting these perspective ant shots from all over. It was fascinating. So, for me to see how they put four units together using the story boards was inspirational. And it was a lot faster.

I mean, how often too do you get to do a movie where you get to see yourself 30 years younger! (laughs)

You know, I mean, it was wild… It’s been the wildest experience I’ve ever had.

Don’t forget to check out Ant-Man when it comes out in theaters on July 17th, you’re going to love it!