Michael Douglas: US actors should stop being 'social media conscious' and focus on 'formal training'

Michael Douglas has suggested lately that starring in Marvel's upcoming movie Ant-Man has allowed him to reach a "whole new audience" that perhaps some of his older, more serious works, such as Basic Instinct and Wall Street never catered towards.

But despite his willingness to join ranks with more fresh-faced actors in terms of his movie role choices, there are some issues the 70-year-old has with 'young Hollywood' these days.

Talking to The Independent on 8 July, the Fatal Attraction star revealed that he thinks the acting talent coming out of the US is diminishing due to so many young stars "getting caught up in their image" and becoming more obsessed with building their profile up on social media than "training" to become an actor.

"There's something going on with young American actors – both men and women – because the Brits and Australians are taking many of the best American roles from them," he claimed to the publication.

"Clearly, it breaks down on two fronts. In Britain they take their training seriously while in the States we're going through a sort of social media image conscious thing rather than formal training. Many actors are getting caught up in this image thing which is going on to affect their range.

"With the Aussies, particularly with the males, it's the masculinity. In the US we have this relatively asexual or unisex area with sensitive young men and we don't have many Channing Tatums or Chris Pratts, while the Aussies do. It's a phenomena."

Just recently, young British actor Tom Holland was confirmed as Marvel's next Spider-Man, an iconically American character and Douglas has previously worked with London-born actress Carey Mulligan, when she played his daughter in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, whom he mentioned as an example to emphasize his point. "There's a crisis in young American actors right now," he commented. "Everyone's much more image conscious than they are about actually playing the part."

Earlier this month, Dustin Hoffman shared his own opinion on the film industry, stating that he believed Hollywood is the "worst it's ever been" at the moment. A thought that Douglas agrees with but also suggests that Hoffman look at powerhouse platforms such as Netflix and HBO, which are currently doing what cinema traditionally does in terms of storytelling.

"I understand what he's saying, but I think you have to look at the delivery system," he continued. "There's a lot of good stuff being made in the cable area, good writing there. Kramer vs Kramer, those great mainline films he was in aren't being made anymore [for cinema] but are in a different delivery system.

"Most of the great screenwriters have gone into the cable area because that's where they can also produce. The problem in making a film for cinema is the cost of distribution. People can scrape together money for a movie but not the advertising."