Here’s Michael Douglas’s Plan For His Death
Michael Douglas is preparing for death by making plans to not let Hollywood claim the rights to his likeness after he's gone.
No, Michael Douglas is not on his deathbed (as far as we know). But he is opening up to The Guardian about what some of his plans are after he’s gone – and those plans do not include letting filmmakers use his likeness so that he can star in movies after his death. “You get to an age where you start thinking about your will and estate,” the Ant-Man star told the publication. “Now I’m thinking I’m also going to have to license my name and likeness, so the rights go to my family rather than to the metaverse.”
Michael Douglas goes on to say that he sees how far AI has come in a relatively short time and what it is now capable of doing, and he doesn’t want to be a part of it without his knowledge. “It’s only a matter of time before you’ll be able to recreate any dead person at any age with the voice and the mannerisms,” he says, “so I want to have some control.”
The type of situation Michael Douglas is talking about would have seemed laughable just a few years ago. But, like it or not, it has become a real possibility. There have been numerous deepfakes on the internet already in which “regular people” impersonate celebrities to the extent that, if it were not for the out-of-character nature of what they were saying, no one would have ever guessed that it wasn’t the real actor speaking.
There were even rumors a while back that Bruce Willis had licensed his likeness and voice to be used in movies and commercials now that he can’t act anymore, but this turned out to be untrue. Yet, a Bruce Willis deepfake still appeared in a Russian advertisement even without his consent. So, it sounds like Michael Douglas has a reason to be cautious about what people can and can’t do with his likeness after he’s gone!
Michael Douglas is 78 years old, so he most likely has a few good years left in him, although movie fans may be a bit concerned about who will take his place as the actor who plays characters everyone loves to hate when he’s gone. Later in the Guardian article, a fan asked Douglas how he is able to play such “deeply unlikeable” characters in a way that is somehow still appealing to the audience. The Fatal Attraction actor then replied that it must be something about his “persona.”
He has a way of acting that makes it clear that, while he may be the bad guy, there is an undercurrent of “ambivalence” and a bit of a struggle over what the right thing to do is. So, he’s not just evil for the sake of being evil, there are nuances to it. Michael Douglas is clearly not a person who was just born wicked or violent, so it is easy to forgive his characters (even if they probably don’t deserve it much of the time).
The fact that Michael Douglas is a pretty nice guy outside of his villain roles is proven by the fact that he and his wife of over 20 years, Catherine Zeta-Jones, still have fun together. Apparently, the two not only play golf together, but they have a secret tradition that Michael Douglas has to follow: “The rules are I have to whip it out if I don’t hit [the ball] past the ladies’ tees,” he explains, meaning that he has to pull his pants down. Most of the time, he’s able to make it, but other times, Catherine gets a show. Talk about keeping the relationship alive!
