Why Michael Douglas Thanked Oliver Stone For Insulting An Oscar-Winning Performance

There are many stories of directors playing mind games with their actors to get an ideal performance out of them, and, while amusing at times, they're not worthy of celebration. I think often of a 21-year-old Shirley MacLaine receiving vague direction from Alfred Hitchcock while making her film acting debut in "The Trouble with Harry." Hitchcock, who famously (perhaps jokingly) once referred to actors as "cattle," was dissatisfied with the young actor's portrayal of a woman who believes she might've killed her estranged husband, and gave her this cryptic advice: "Genuine chopper, old girl." MacLaine was flummoxed until her co-star, John Forsythe, suggested she look up synonyms for "genuine" and "chopper." MacLaine finally pieced Hitch's direction together. "Real axe."

In a 2012 interview with The A.V. Club, MacLaine said, "[Hitchcock] activated your sense of mystery, but he could be cruel." Amazingly, there are worse stories. For instance, Werner Herzog once pulled a gun on his erratic "Aguirre, Wrath of God" star Klaus Kinski when he threatened to quit the production, and threatened to carry out a murder-suicide if he didn't come back to set. Somewhere in between is Oliver Stone's treatment of Michael Douglas on "Wall Street."

Oliver Stone is a passionate man. He served in the Vietnam War (the trauma of which inspired him to make a trilogy of films about the conflict, including the Best Picture-winning "Platoon"), and fearlessly speaks his mind. At the peak of his filmmaking powers (1986 to 1999), he tackled difficult subjects with a first-rate crew (most notably cinematographer Robert Richardson), and challenged his actors to match his intensity. And when he felt they were falling short of what he needed, he messed with their heads. Again, I abhor this approach — but, in Douglas' case, it might've earned the actor an Oscar.

While attending a screening of "Wall Street" at the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival, Douglas recalled Stone delivering a troubling note regarding his portrayal of the swaggering stock broker Gordon Gekko. "Okay, so we were finishing the second week of filming," he said, "And there was a knock on my door. 'Hey Mike, it's Oliver. Can I come in?' I say, 'Yeah, come on in.' He comes in the trailer and sits down. He says to me, 'You okay?' I said, 'Yeah, I'm okay.'" That's when Stone leveled the boom. "[He asks], 'Are you doing drugs?' I said, 'No, I'm not doing drugs.' And he said, 'Because you look like you've never acted before in your life.'"

Stone urged Douglas to look at the dailies, something the star didn't like to do because his producer's instinct would kick in and he'd see what takes weren't usable, but he humored his director. What he found was hardly cause for alarm. "And I'm looking at them really hard, and critically, and they seemed pretty good. So I keep saying, 'I think it's pretty good,' and [Stone said], 'Yeah, it is, isn't it,'"

Douglas quickly figured it out. Stone was intentionally irritating his star to star as a means of getting an edgier performance out of him. "He was willing for me to hate his guts for the rest of this movie to get that extra little push," said Douglas. 38 years later, he doesn't hold a grudge against Stone for his "Vietnam mentality" tactics. Why would he? His iconic portrayal of a Wall Street player who preaches the gospel of greed won him a Best Actor award at the Oscars.