Two-time Academy Award winner actor-producer Michael Douglas (79) received the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa on Tuesday. Speaking on the sidelines of the film festival, he said, “I am grateful to IFFI for this wonderful honour. Satyajit Ray was a renaissance man, honoured to receive an award in his name. I remember watching his movies Pather Panchali and Charulata as a student. And I was like Wow! He was all in one – a fine director, writer, editor, musician.”
Michael, who was accompanied by his wife, actor Catherine Zeta-Jones (54), and son Dylan (25) said, “I love India and Indian movies. I am coming to India after 17 years. I wanted to make the sequel of Romancing the Stone in India but the project got shelved. I thought of calling it Romancing the Monsoons.” He mentioned that as parents, he and Catherine wanted their kids to grow up in a normal middle-class upbringing. “They knew their mother was a famous actor. But for the longest time, my kids did not know what their father did. They thought I was this unoccupied stay-at-home dad, who makes excellent pancakes for breakfast,” he said.
Michael who has worked in the industry for nearly 60 years said that he goes by one core principle when he chooses a movie. “I rather play a small part in a good movie than have a big role in a bad movie,” he said. Reminiscing how he made the iconic movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Michael said that his father Kirk Doughlas had acquired the rights to Ken Kesey’s novel in the 1960s. “He staged it as a Broadway play but it had little success. He wanted to turn it into a film but it never took off. Years later, after I read the novel, I approached him and told him that I would produce the film. And the rest is history,” Michael said. He mentioned that the movie was shot in a mental asylum in Oregon. The actor said that he and his family love Indian cinema. Catherine Zeta-Jones said that she and her son love Shah Rukh Khan. “We have watched Om Shanti Om nearly 50 times,” she quipped. Talking about the secret of his hoarse husky voice and deep-throated dialogue delivery technique, Michael said, “That’s thanks to the Stage-IV cancer which I had 15 years ago. After the chemotherapy my voice became hoarse. My fans are crazy about my voice.”
