Michael Douglas On American Actors ‘Crisis’: They’re Asexual Or Unisex

Uh oh, Michael Douglas, you can certainly expect some shade coming your way for these comments. The Fatal Attraction star?and former heart throb (well, we thought so) has said in a recent interview with The Independent that there’s a major crisis with the male American actors of today; he reckons there’s a drought on the traditional ideas of ‘masculinity’, with many young actors being ‘relatively asexual’ and ‘sensitive’, meaning that the kind of roles he used to get are now going to foreign actors. His comments sprang from a discussion about the fact that most major ‘macho’ roles, for want of a better term, are farmed out to actors who aren’t American, such as Australian Thor (Chris Hemsworth), British Superman (Henry Cavill) and plenty more. In his view, it’s not necessarily because these dudes are the perfect fit, but rather, because there’s fewer options within the existing pool of American actors, and for that, he blames the growing obsession with social media. Douglas wants to see more Channing Tatums and Chris Pratts. Are you with him?

?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… 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.?

?There’s a crisis in young American actors right now… Everyone’s much more image conscious than they are about actually playing the part.”

Interestingly, Douglas is currently promoting his role in Marvel’s Ant-Man, for which American actor Paul Rudd plays the titular comic-book character. What will Rudd have to say about this?

Do you think American actors need to be more manly, a la Tatum and Pratt?

The Independent