Interview completed on May 19^th, 2013, at the Cannes Film Festival

Michael Douglas was recovering from a long, draining battle with illness when director Steven Soderbergh offered him the chance to play Liberace, a role he describes as “one of the best parts of my career.”

Returning to work after months of treatment for throat cancer, and delivering what critics have praised as remarkable performance, was cathartic, he says.

“Steven sent me the script and it came at a time when I was recovering from cancer and all of a sudden I was handed one of the best parts of my career with the opportunity to work with people that I love. And it meant a lot to me. It really was cathartic, it was really important to me.”

Behind The Candelabra was tentatively scheduled to start filming in 2011 and was postponed because of scheduling conflicts for Soderbergh and his other leading man, Matt Damon, who plays Liberace’s young lover Scott Thorson. Although Douglas suspects that both Soderbergh and Damon could see that he wasn’t quite strong enough to return to work at that time.

“At that point I had been out of the business for a while and frankly, I was just happy to be alive,” says Douglas. “And then this great project comes along. And at that time there were conflicts in the schedules for both Matt and Stephen and so we couldn’t do it then.

“And I was convinced that it was going to fall apart. And in hindsight I realise now that they knew I wasn’t up for it. It was too early. I was still too weak and too skinny.

“And you don’t see it yourself because after what you’ve gone through you’re just happy to be alive. But they were absolutely right. Because I realise now that I wouldn’t physically been able to do it.”

Soderbergh started shooting in 2012 and the film was premiered, to huge critical acclaim, at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Based on Thorson’s memoir, Behind The Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, the film is a funny, poignant and at times shocking story of the flamboyant entertainer’s turbulent five year affair with the young, handsome man he first met back stage after a concert in 1977.

For Douglas, at its heart, Behind the Candelabra is a love story. “I’ve seen it a couple of times and I was pleasantly surprised that pretty soon after the movie started, I didn’t see Matt or me anymore.

“I didn’t see us, I just saw these two people. And after that, I didn’t see these two guys, I just saw a couple. The arguments were the kind of arguments that a male and female could be having, they were the same debates and fights that all couples have.

“And this was a film that was turned down by all the studios under the fear that ‘well, only gays will want to see this picture..’ and I think it’s nice to prove them wrong. It’s about a couple, it’s a love story, and it doesn’t have anything to do with what your sexual identity is.”

Liberace – known to his family and friends as Lee – was gay but stayed firmly in the closet all of his life, fearing that admitting his sexuality in public would harm his career.

“We do live in different times fortunately,” says Douglas. “It’s moved so quickly it’s hard to imagine. I mean, look at the States and the debate about same sex marriages. This is an issue that has changed dramatically in the last five years.

“I think Lee would have freaked out if this picture had been shown in his time but with what is going on now, I think he would have supported it.”

Liberace, who died in 1987, was a brilliant musician and consummate showman with a huge following who would watch his TV shows in their millions and flock to his live performances.

He was at the height of his fame when he was introduced to Thorson by a mutual friend. Liberace was clearly taken with the younger man and within weeks had asked him to move into his home and become his personal assistant.

He showered Thorson with expensive gifts and later into their relationship, encouraged him to have plastic surgery. He also introduced him into his stage act, as the sparkling chauffeur who drove him on stage every night in a gold Rolls Royce.

In portraying him, Douglas was able to draw, at least partly, on his own personal experience. “I remember I was 11 or 12 years old and visiting my father in Palm Springs, which was my second home,” he recalls.

“And I remember crossing at a street corner and Lee was crossing the other way in a Rolls Royce or a Bentley Convertible and in that Palm Springs sunshine I remember being blinded by the light coming off the rings on his fingers and the gold around his neck. He was just shimmering in that desert sun.

“And you know, there wasn’t a hair out of place and now I know why – because it was a wig. And he couldn’t have been nicer. And you know one of the many things I liked about this, apart from the joy and fun of playing a gay guy was the fact that I was playing somebody nice. I don’t get a chance to do that very often.

“He was generous, pleasant, he had a great sense of humour, and if you talked to the behind the scenes guys who worked on his stage shows they will tell you that he worked hard and he was just a lovely, lovely guy.”

Before filming started Douglas watched as much footage of Liberace as he could find. Physically, he points out, they were very different. “There wasn’t a lot of home footage but there was a person-to-person interview he had done once and I watched his TV show and recordings of his concerts.

“For me, it was the joy and fun of playing a real life person and being able to watch him and see him. But it was intimidating, too, because he was a big, barrel chested Polish guy and one of his thighs was the size of two of mine.

“So there was that aspect of physically getting comfortable playing him. And then there’s the aspect of creating a character versus doing an impersonation. And then realising your limitations – you know, you can create an image but you are not physically the same size.

Shooting some of the film’s more intimate – and at times outrageous – scenes proved to be a lot of fun, he says.

“With the love scenes we would make a little joke early on, something like, ‘hey be careful, I don’t want to give you a bad whisker burn..’ or ‘get the chap stick out buddy, here I come..’

“I remember there’s a scene where Matt comes out of the pool wearing these little Speedos with the sparkles on and he surprised me, I didn’t know what he was going to do.

“He came over and got on top of me and kissed me and he didn’t know I was going to do it, but I grabbed his ass and by accident the chaise lounge chair started moving around. It was fun.”

Behind The Candelabra marks Douglas’s third collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh. Douglas has had a remarkable career, as an actor and a producer, spanning five decades. He starred in the TV series The Streets of San Francisco in the early 1970s and in 1975 won an Academy Award for Best Picture for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, which he produced.

As an actor, his film credits include The China Syndrome, Romancing The Stone, Jewel In The Nile, Fatal Attraction, Wall Street, Falling Down, Basic Instinct, The Game, Wonder Boys, Traffic, The Sentinel and Haywire. He won his second Oscar, for Best Actor, for Wall Street.

Douglas is married to the actress Catherine Zeta Jones and they have two children.

 

Q and A follows:

 

Q: When Steven first mentioned playing Liberace to you what was your reaction?

A: Well, he first mentioned it to me in 2000 when we were doing Traffic. In Traffic I played this drugs tsar and Steven looked at me and said, ‘have you ever thought about playing Liberace?’ I thought, ‘this guy is really messing with me now. What the hell is this about?’ And I said, ‘no, Steven, that hasn’t crossed my mind..’ And he had been thinking about Liberace and his life story and I didn’t realise that at the time. I guess a couple of times after that I would joke with him and do a Liberace voice for him and say ‘thank you very much Steven..’ but then I forgot about it. And then years later he called me up and said ‘I think I have something..’ and by then he had found the way into the story with Behind The Candelabra, this book that Scott Thorson had written. And he had got Jerry Weintraub (producer) to option it and Richard LaGravenese to write a screenplay and Matt had agreed to do Scott. And I couldn’t believe how brave it was of Matt that he wanted to do it. So he sent me the script and it came at a time when I was recovering from cancer and all of a sudden I was handed one of the best parts of my career with the opportunity to work with people that I love. And it meant a lot to me. It really was cathartic, it was really important to me.

 

Q: Especially at that point?

A: Oh yes, at that point I had been out of the business for a while and frankly, I was just happy to be alive. And then this great project comes along. And at that time there were conflicts in the schedules for both Matt and Stephen and so we couldn’t do it then. And I was convinced that it was going to fall apart. And in hindsight I realise now that they knew I wasn’t up for it.

 

Q: It was too soon after your illness?

A: Yes, it was too early. I was still too weak and too skinny. And you don’t see it yourself because after what you’ve gone through you’re just happy to be alive. But they were absolutely right. Because I realise now that I wouldn’t physically been able to do it.

 

Q: I believe you had met Liberace?

A: Yes.

 

Q: And what memories did you have of him? And what did you do to prepare to play him?

A: I remember I was 11 or 12 years old and visiting my father in Palm Springs, which was my second home. And I remember crossing at a street corner and Lee was crossing the other way in a Rolls Royce or a Bentley Convertible and in that Palm Springs sunshine I remember being blinded by the light coming off the rings on his fingers and the gold around his neck. He was just shimmering in that desert sun. And you know, there wasn’t a hair out of place and now I know why – because it was a wig (laughs). And he couldn’t have been nicer. And you know one of the many things I liked about this, apart from the joy and fun of playing a gay guy was the fact that I was playing somebody nice. I don’t get a chance to do that very often. He was generous, pleasant, he had a great sense of humour, and if you talked to the behind the scenes guys who worked on his stage shows they will tell you that he worked hard and he was just a lovely, lovely guy.

 

Q: Did you watch a lot of footage of him?

A: There wasn’t a lot of home footage but there was a person-to-person interview he had done once and I watched his TV show and recordings of his concerts. For me, it was the joy and fun of playing a real life person and being able to watch him and see him. But it was intimidating, too, because he was a big, barrel chested Polish guy and one of his thighs was the size of two of mine. So there was that aspect of physically getting comfortable playing him. And then there’s the aspect of creating a character versus doing an impersonation. And then realising your limitations – you know, you can create an image but you are not physically the same size.

 

Q: Did the costumes help with finding that physicality?

A: Yes they did. The voice came first and that’s a big thing but then the clothes and it was always a question of how broad to go.

 

Q: Because you had to be careful not to do a caricature?

A: Yes, exactly. And this is a real love story and LaGravenese had written such a good script and we didn’t want any winking. There couldn’t be any winking at the camera. I think a lot of people are surprised when they see this picture because they are kind of expecting a La Cage aux Folles feel and it’s a lot different. But it all came together and I was just floored when I knew that Matt was going to do it. I thought ‘this is a brave guy…’

 

Q: Why did you think he was brave?

A: Well, Matt is in the prime of his career. It’s one thing at my age to do whatever you want but to me he represents a new generation of actors and leading men who are not governed by studios or by an image. But he really reaches out in terms of the material he takes on, the characters he takes on, and so it was tremendously flattering and reassuring that he said, ‘let’s do this together. Let’s step off this cliff together..’

 

Q: You said it’s essentially a love story and all relationships have their ups and downs but it’s also no holds barred and we do see very revealing moments. Liberace hid his sexuality because of the time that he lived in but what do you think he would have made of the film?

A: We do live in different times fortunately. It’s moved so quickly it’s hard to imagine. I mean, look at the States and the debate about same sex marriages. This is an issue that has changed dramatically in the last five years. I think the Church has pushed it along in a way that they didn’t realise they would, just in terms of their bad behaviour and cover-ups for so many years. I think Lee would have freaked out if this picture had been shown in his time but with what is going on now, I think he would have supported it. I’ve seen it a couple of times and I was pleasantly surprised that pretty soon after the movie started, I didn’t see Matt or me anymore. I didn’t see us, I just saw these two people. And after that, I didn’t see these two guys, I just saw a couple. The arguments were the kind of arguments that a male and female could be having, they were the same debates and fights that all couples have. And this was a film that was turned down by all the studios under the fear that ‘well, only gays will want to see this picture..’  And I think it’s nice to prove them wrong. It’s about a couple, it’s a love story, and it doesn’t have anything to do with what your sexual identity is.

 

Q: Have you ever played the piano?

A: No, I don’t play the piano. I just worked really hard at it. I spent hours on that aspect of it. He was a great piano player who found a way to enlarge his audience. He was a wonderful showman. There was one time where he was at the Hollywood bowl in his black tuxedo with a black piano and he goes, ‘hmmm, can you see me?’ And he realised that he needed a stage presence and he certainly got that (laughs). And he was probably the first person on television who looked directly into the camera and talked. And I remember him on TV as a kid and the reason you never thought about the gay issue was because he was having so much fun. He had that contagious attitude of fun where he would talk right to you and he was sharing with you and you were just so happy to see him having so much fun that it was contagious. And when he went on to the stage, people just loved him.

 

Q: The film is interesting too, in what it says about celebrity. He was a man who could indulge his taste in expensive things and young lovers. Do you think his life spun out of control?

A: Well, just as we know a lot of guys who like a lot of blonde bimbos, he was a guy who led with his dick (laughs). I mean, there’s no question about that. He had an attraction to these younger guys and possibly that got out of control. And he had an insatiable appetite for young good-looking guys and he would try and do whatever he could to prolong and maintain the way he looked the older he got.

 

Q: You have to do some outrageous scenes with Matt. What was that like?

A: I think we were both terrified that if we both started cracking up the floodgates would open and we would have a hard time pulling it back. I do honestly believe that. And there were a couple of times when it was close. But we said, ‘let’s not even go there’ because we were terrified that once we started we wouldn’t be able to pull back. But you know, it was a great shoot. Stephen is very fast. He doesn’t do a lot of takes and both Matt and I are pretty prepared guys who like to get on with it.

 

Q: But what about the love scenes?

A: With the love scenes we would make a little joke early on, something like, ‘hey be careful, I don’t want to give you a bad whisker burn..’ or ‘get the chap stick out buddy, here I come..’ I remember there’s a scene where Matt comes out of the pool wearing these little Speedos with the sparkles on and he surprised me, I didn’t know what he was going to do. He came over and got on top of me and kissed me and he didn’t know I was going to do it, but I grabbed his ass and by accident the chaise lounge chair started moving around. It was fun.

 

Q: Did Catherine do Side Effects with Steven before you did Candelabra?

A: Yes, she did. So this was his last film.

 

Q: Why do you like working with him so much?

A: First of all he likes actors and you can’t say that about all directors. But Steven really likes actors and he respects their intelligence. He works fast and he is slightly twisted (laughs). He has a little dark corner there with a good sense of humour about it. And it’s a joy to work with him because he is talented and organised and efficient. We would shoot during the day and by the time I got home and had a meal he would have sent me the day’s work, the scene would already be cut and edited. We had a tight schedule and we had to shoot so out of sequence and that was invaluable. As each day mounted up, we had a system were you could go back and look at the previous scenes and play them and get a sense of where you were at. That’s very rare. We finished on a Friday and by the Monday he had his first cut of the picture. And that’s somebody who knows exactly what they are doing. He shows a lot of faith in the actors and he lets you play out a scene.

 

Q: What was it like the first time you put the full Liberace regalia on?

A:  It was good (laughs). You do your tests before you start filming, you do your hair and make up tests and we worked on our wigs and spent a lot of time with different shades of contacts until we got it right. And then you put your clothes on and (adopts Liberace voice) ‘you have your voice that you have worked on for a while’ and all of a sudden all that hard work pays off and there it is. And it was that nice feeling of not seeing the work, it felt fairly effortless, but you knew how many hours had been put in.

 

Q: With a very specific voice like that do you use it all the time on set or do you switch it on and off for each scene?

A: In the beginning I would keep it because I couldn’t tell whether or not it might be too much – and usually it was never enough (laughs). And if you lose it a couple of times that was what was great about watching the previous scenes and it would come right back again. And there were varying degrees, because he would put it on a little more when he was on stage more than when he wasn’t.

 

Q: Has Catherine seen the film?

A: Yes. She was knocked out. It really made her laugh. She thought it was great work.

 

Q: What are you doing next?

A: Well, I’m having a roll really. I’ve already done a picture with Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline called Last Vegas. John Turtletaub directed it and it’s testing through the roof. Not one of us had ever worked together but it turned out great. We had a great time shooting it, which can sometimes be the kiss of death, but it’s testing fantastically well. That comes out in November. And I’m doing a picture with Diane Keaton that Rob Reiner is directing called And So It Goes and then I’m producing and working on a thriller called The Reach in the Fall.

 

Q: So you’re back to work and clearly enjoying it?

A: I’m enjoying it with a whole new fresh look at life and work. After you go through something like that, the illness, it really does make you look at things in a different way. And I’m really enjoying working so much.

 

Q: You’ve taken various pictures to the Cannes Film Festival over the years. What was it like taking Behind The Candelabra there?

A: Oh it’s always a treat. I was here with Wall Street 2 a couple of years back and I also remember when we came here with Basic Instinct.

 

Q: What was that like when you took Basic Instinct to Cannes?

A: I remember Basic Instinct screened in Cannes and nobody knew what to say (laughs). We went to the dinner afterwards with Gilles Jacob (President of the Cannes Film Festival) and everybody and nobody said a word. And Sharon (Stone) and I couldn’t figure it out because nobody was saying anything. And finally Gerard Depardieu just went, ‘wow…’ (laughs). And I said, ‘thanks man, I was going crazy..’ And Cannes was great for this picture. With HBO, who made Behind The Candelabra, they have a built in audience in the States and they know how to market it and to have a theatrical audience in the rest of the world is a really interesting combination.

 

Q: Earlier you referred to this as one best parts you’ve ever had…

A: This is definitely one of the best parts I’ve ever had. I’ve had a producing background going all the way back and I’m always looking at the movie, I want to be in a good movie. And sometimes you get the parts and sometimes you don’t. But if look back, to Gecko (Wall Street) or D-Fens in Falling Down, this has got to be one of the best parts I’ve ever had with a great script, great director, producer, co-star, this is what you dream about.