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Michael Douglas’ performance as corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s 1987 crime drama Wall Street was so good that it earned him a Best Actor Oscar, but the director gave him some absolutely brutal feedback on his acting while they were working on the movie.
At the TCM Classic Film Festival last month (via People), Douglas revealed that during the second week of shooting, Stone even came into his trailer and asked if he was doing drugs. “‘No, I’m not doing drugs,’” Douglas said, to which Stone replied, “Because you look like you’ve never acted before in your life.”
Douglas, who admitted he didn’t like to look at dailies on the set of his films because “I’m one of those guys that always sees what’s wrong,” agreed to accompany Stone to the editing room to check out how bad his acting really was. “I’m looking at them really hard, and critically, and they seemed pretty good. So I keep saying, ‘I think it’s pretty good,’ and [Stone said], ‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it.’”
The 81-year-old actor says he didn’t take Stone’s insult to heart, noting that the celebrated director of JFK and Salvador was known for getting the best possible performances from his actors and just wanted Douglas to inject extra “nastiness,” “vengeance,” and “meanness” into his portrayal of Gekko. “He was willing for me to hate his guts for the rest of this movie to get that extra little push.”
He added, “His record of successes with actors is quite impressive. So I’m deeply, deeply appreciative of the fact that he gave me the part and the fact that he pushed me to another level.”
Douglas would go on to reprise the role of Gekko in Stone’s 2010 sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. At this point in Stone’s career, Douglas found him to be “mellow”, while co-star Shia LaBeouf recalled having a pretty raw on-set experience with the director.
“Oliver would just say, ‘Go to that bar, get fucked-up, and come back,’” he told GQ. “I’d walk over, get smashed, and go back to work. He would really fuck with me when I was smashed. I get aggressive when I’m smashed, and he’d film that. He would just open you up completely, make you fucking naked – and then call, ‘Action!’”
The post The Insult That Helped Michael Douglas Win His Wall Street Oscar appeared first on Den of Geek.
