Earlier this week, Dustin Hoffman boldly announced that Hollywood’s latest movies are the worst he’s seen in his 50 years in the business. And now, another Oscar-winning actor with five decades of experience, Michael Douglas, has filed an additional complaint about the American film industry—specifically about its actors and their out-of-whack priorities.
“There’s something going on with young American actors—both men and women,” Douglas tells The Independent, “because the Brits and Australians are taking many of the best American roles from them.”
And the actor, who co-stars in this week’s Ant-Man movie, has a theory why.
“In Britain, they take their training seriously while in the [s]tates we’re going through a sort of social-media image-conscious thing rather than formal training,” he says. “Many actors are getting caught up in this image thing which is going on to affect their range.”
There's another issue, too, according to Douglas.
“With the Aussies, particularly with the males, it’s the masculinity. In the U.S. 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.”
(No offense, Ben Affleck, Chris Evans, and Bradley Cooper.)
As to the British point, it does seem true that Brits like Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Emily Blunt, and Felicity Jones have recently taken Hollywood by force, in an industry invasion so apparent that Vanity Fair published an entire spread on the phenomenon this year. But, the American actors aren't all Twitter-following focused—with Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Oscar Isaac as just a few who have avoided falling down the social-networking rabbit hole.
The social-media distraction is a fair argument, not just for actors but for the country at large. Sadly, it might take more than a junket interview for anyone to convince young people to shut down their cellulars and get back to, you know, actual work.
Douglas also comments on Hoffman’s opinion that Hollywood’s latest films are kind of awful.
“I understand what he’s saying,” Douglas says, “but I think you have to look at the delivery system. 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.”
