Michael Douglas recently looked back on his career during a Q&A event for his 1987 movie Wall Street, sharing how his longtime friend Jack Nicholson often teased him about his approach to acting, especially focusing on his hair. The Oscar-winning actor highlighted how hair has played a crucial role in shaping his characters, and how Nicholson would jokingly criticize his style.
Douglas explained,
“My characters’ hair has always been an important part of my acting,”
adding,
“It’s just funny how that kind of thing helps.”
He recalled Nicholson’s teasing, saying,
“Jack Nicholson always used to give me s‑‑‑ about hair acting. [He’d say], ‘What’s with his hair acting?’ I said, ‘You should talk.’”
The Role of Hair in Defining Characters According to Douglas
This wasn’t the first time Douglas spoke about Nicholson’s remarks on his “hair acting.” In a 2023 interview with The Guardian, he described how physically embodying a character’s hairstyle helped him unlock their identity. Referring to a particular example, Douglas said,
“A long time ago, after Black Rain with Ridley Scott — where I got this sort of Anglo-afro perm — my dear friend Jack Nicholson said: ‘What’s with your hair?’”
He responded,
“I looked at him and said: ‘Wait a minute. You always act with your hair.’”
Douglas detailed several examples where his hair influenced his character portrayal:
“Falling Down — I have a hairdresser to thank for deciding at the very last minute: ‘Let’s just go with a flat top.’ On Wall Street, Pat Riley, the basketball coach for the Lakers, always had his hair greased back, so I thought the lizard look would work. A lot of times, I do lead with my hair.”
Jack Nicholson’s Own Transformations and Their Friendship
Jack Nicholson, known for his varied hairstyles from the slicked-back look in As Good As It Gets to the vivid green hair of Batman’s Joker, has certainly embraced hair as part of his acting toolkit as well. Despite their decades-long friendship, Nicholson and Douglas have never acted together on screen. However, their collaboration includes the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where Nicholson starred and Douglas was a producer.
Current Status and Future Prospects for Both Actors
Though Nicholson has not officially retired, he has not appeared in films since 2010’s How Do You Know. Meanwhile, Douglas is currently on a break from acting. At a July press conference during the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, Douglas shared,
“I have not worked since 2022 purposefully because I realized I had to stop.”
He reflected on his long career, saying,
“I had been working pretty hard for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set.”
Douglas further revealed that while he has no firm plans to return to acting, he avoids calling himself retired in case “something special” arises. Now 81 years old, Douglas last appeared in the family drama Looking Through Water.
