Catherine Zeta-Jones Talks Michael Douglas’s Retirement from Acting

Spartacus star Kirk Douglas, who died in 2020 at age 103, continued acting into his 90s, and his son Michael Douglas might just do the same, despite the latter’s talk of leaving his screen career behind.

In a new interview with The Times, Catherine Zeta-Jones said her husband of a quarter-century may end up acting again.

“Michael has definitely earned the chance to slow down,” she said. “But I never say never. He’s his father’s son and loves to work — let’s just say, ‘retirement’ is a flexible concept.”

So far in his career, the younger Douglas has won two Academy Awards (one for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and one for his leading role in Wall Street), four Golden Globes (one Cecil B. DeMille Award, plus trophies for his performances in Wall Street, Behind the Candelabra, and The Kominsky Method), and one Emmy Award (for Behind the Candelabra).

Douglas is also known for his roles in the films Romancing the Stone, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Traffic, and Wonder Boys, and for playing Hank Pym in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Anne Marie Fox/Netflix

The 80-year-old did say at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival last month that he’s just about done acting.

“I have not worked since 2022, purposely, because I realized I had to stop,” he told the press at the event, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve been working … for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on set. … I have no real intention of going back. I say I’m not retired, because [if] something special came up, I’d go back. But otherwise, I’m quite happy to watch my wife work.”

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Douglas does have at least one film project still in the pipeline — the drama film Looking Through Water, which also features his son Cameron Douglas and is due for theatrical release on Friday, September 5 — if not more. “I had one little independent movie that I’m trying to get a good script out of, but that’s about it,” he said at the film festival last month.

As for Zeta-Jones, she’s still hard at work. She stars in the TV series Wednesday, the second season of which just started streaming on Netflix, and she’s set to star in the Prime Video thriller series Kill Jackie and to reunite with Wednesday star Jenna Ortega in the upcoming thriller film The Gallerist.

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