'I Don't Worry About The Part': Michael Douglas Reflects On 50 Years Of Making Movies

Actor-producer Michael Douglas was in Boston last week to accept the Bette Davis Lifetime Achievement Award from Boston University. Starting out in television in "The Streets of San Francisco" in the 1970s, Douglas has won accolades for his wide variety of works — from the 1987 drama "Wall Street" to the new Netflix show "The Kominsky Method."

Douglas sat down with Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson to discuss his long career. He says he was always attracted to roles that "were more dangerous" and entered a "kind of gray area."

"Maybe it came out of, I was in college in the '60s, and the Vietnam War was going on, and we also got into a period of that gray area," Douglas says. "And so I've always been sort of attracted to that mix, that there's a degree of larceny in all of us, but the hope and belief that we'll do the right thing."

Playing characters that were morally ambiguous — and in some cases, the villain — was what made Douglas famous, but he says he never chose to do a movie based on the part. He cared more about the material.

"I read the script, and I think, 'That's a good movie, and that's a really good movie, moves me, makes me laugh, this and that.' I don't worry about the part," Douglas says. "Then I'm looking who's around me? Who's the director? Who's the cast? And I would much rather have a little part in a good movie than a big part in a crappy movie."