14 DAY TRIAL // For the first time since he completed chemotherapy for throat cancer, actor Michael Douglas is speaking to the media. The Hollywood Reporter
sat down with the legendary actor to speak of tabloid reports, chemo, his health and his plans for the future, acting-wise.
First of all, THR begins the lengthy piece by saying that, while Douglas is a bit frailer than he was before the cancer diagnosis, he’s a far cry from the picture the tabloids paint of him: he’s alert and energetic, has all his hair, speaks well and is in bright spirits.
The only sign that he just completed a very aggressive treatment for cancer is that he’s lost “some weight,” and looks as if coming out of a “really bad cold.” Otherwise, Douglas is looking to the future.
First off, he’s preparing to go back to work: the actor has just been offered and accepted to star in the biopic “Liberace,” opposite Matt Damon, a part he says he’s eager to get started on.
Then (but not necessarily in that order), he plans to spend even more time with his family and take wife Catherine Zeta Jones and their two children on a trip around the world.
There is also his health to consider, of course: in January, Douglas is scheduled for a PET scan that will determine whether doctors have been able to eliminate the tumor. Odds are looking good for him, with doctors saying there’s an 80 percent chance Douglas is cancer-free.
Even so, tabloids continue to run to this day stories about Michael’s health, accompanied by (presumably digitally altered) shots of him looking as if at death’s door. Neither he nor Catherine allows that to bring them down.
“I don’t read any of that stuff, regardless of what it says,” Catherine says. “Where it does affect me, it’s the fact that Michael is sequestered in the apartment. But he really is on the upward curve now,” she adds.
Michael too says that he doesn’t bother reading the tabloids – and he doesn’t really seem to mind that he spends so much of his time in “lock-down” mode.
Come to think of it, the thought that he might die from the disease didn’t even occur to him, he says.
“I haven’t really digested it yet, truth be told. As I looked through the stats, I didn’t think of this as life and death; I just saw it as an illness to get over. So I didn’t dig into the bottom of my soul to see what I could see. It certainly has put a little perspective on mortality, obviously,” he explains.
This has taught him another important lesson as well: family is what matters most in life.
“I’ve been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support,” he says choking up. “Cancer has shown me what family is. It showed me a love that I never knew really existed.”
For the full interview Michael Douglas gave to The Hollywood Reporter, please refer here.