Michael Douglas of The Sentinel 

Interview by Reg Seeton

		Life Story
		Biography
		Film and Career
		Awards & Nominations

Michael Douglas is a name that is synonymous with quality movies, both as an actor and as a producer. Since he is both the lead actor and the producer of The Sentinel, directed by Clark Johnson, audiences can be sure it's going to be of a certain caliber and quality. He's also a very smart man, having opted not to be involved at all in Basic Instinct 2.

Michael Douglas on the physicality and realism of The Sentinel:

"This genre, which has been done to say the least, is only as good as the execution. I think this is the best behind-the-scenes, accurate rendition of what the Secret Service does, and I think all of that verisimilitude really makes a difference. As far as the running, I pulled a hamstring on this picture, and anyone who has done that, you know it takes a little while... Then, of course, you find out interesting things about your co-leads. For example, Kiefer, who runs like the wind and is not going to wait around for you, either... I wasn't ready for Eva. When she starts passing you by, with high-heeled shoes on, you know you're in trouble."

On the love story and relationship with the First Lady character:

"We were happy with it. It was probably the only element that came from the book, that was still in the book originally... instead of it being all carnal, these two people had really fallen in love. As Kiefer says at one point, 'I never saw it coming,' and that's practical. I think it's a nice kind of surprise, it adds another element. As you think about it, there is a reality, "Wow, he's assigned to that detail. That's the only person she she was going to be carrying on," and I like the balance. You play the relationship between she and the President as - it's not terribly an adversarial fight."

"I don't think the Secret Service would like to be promoted with the idea that there's a mole in their agency, but saying that, the author of the novel, Gerald Petievich, was an ex-Secret Service officer, and [technical supervisor] Gerry [Cavis] worked in the Clinton Presidential detail, [he] was immensely helpful in re-creating all of that information, and I think they're going to be most appreciative of how accurate this stuff is. I mean, the point numbers around the motorcades - who gets out of what car, when the President gets out of the car, how you extend your body from the door to make a longer wall - little things, like people getting excited when they shake the President's hand, they won't let go, there's a very simple pressure point that you can lean over, [it] doesn't make any big disturbance and you can release someone's hand from holding the President's hand...you talk about how to get into character, there's no way you can understand how you can lay your body in front of someone else, instinctually, to take a bullet. It's really hard to understand that, and the idea that with that kind of pressure involved in their life, how hard they play when they're off duty."

On the Secret Service and sensitive information on set:

"I think Gerry [Cavis] has the right balance. He's not going out of his way to share personal stories or behind-the-scenes situations that were happening with President Clinton or anything else like that. I think he can talk about the training that they do. One of the things that they do is the weapons training, which we did. Of course, Kiefer, with 24, you assume he can dismantle and assemble a gun, and learning to use that the way the Secret Service does, but what made it a little different was live ammunition. We did all of this practice and target shooting with live ammunition. For instance, you get in that kind of classic movie position with the gun up here, and then you go, 'There are real bullets in here.' So, Kiefer and I were trying to patronize Eva a little bit, you know, 'Poor little girl out of Desperate Housewives,' and this and that. To make a long story short, it was unbelievable. I think the FBI agents that were there with us and the Secret Service agents conferred and they thought she shot better than 90% of the police officers in the country. She just blew Kiefer and I away."

Political indifference and the approach to the characters:

"Well, they all vote and this and that, but you're totally apolitical in terms of the man you're protecting, or the Vice-President or the First Lady. I mean, we set up the fact that this guy, as a young officer, took a bullet for President Reagan. If you're in the Secret Service, you're not always on the Presidential staff. They deal with counterfeiting, as we kind of mention in the script, they deal with the Treasury Department. That's their expertise as the Secret Service too, so you're in and out. This guy, because of the pressure, they party pretty hard. Like I said, this guy is a bit of a rascal who likes to play practical jokes. I mean, somebody is about to retire; he's never been the head of a detail. He's never even been the head of the First Lady's detail."

"I mean, they asked me to do the picture a few years ago, but we did it quite well the first time around. Sharon and I were spectacular, and I was in every scene in that picture, and Paul Verhoeven is a good director, and I think it was a perfect example of someone who was stunning in a great role, and Sharon was. Ironically, we had offered it to Kim Basinger before, when we were trying to get a star. She had done Nine 1/2 Weeks and not a lot of stars wanted to go into that area where Paul and I were going to go. I understand that, and Sharon was spectacular in that picture. Regardless of how it was executed, I think it's really hard for sex in the cinema now because it's 15 years later, and you've got all these cable outlets, you've got all of the Internet, you've got shows like Desperate Housewives, and the broadcasting standards on the networks have increased so dramatically, that there really isn't the titillation factor that you had a number of years ago."

On the media and being misquoted:

"I think that it's an interesting issue, as far a print media right now, which is really under attack from the Internet. It's getting more and more common for editors of magazines to take a flashy quote, or a controversial quote, preferably a quote that has a couple of stars' names in it, put it out there a month before the magazine issue is going to come out, and then create some buzz and attention, to increase the circulation of their magazine. When I first started hearing about this [a recent article and an "apparent" quote in GQ magazine about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie], it didn't make any sense to me, this particular quote, and when I read the article, I never remembered saying that at all. It was a very lengthy article. I had spent maybe 20 hours with this reporter, she had a tape recorder at my home, at my office, at restaurants, and when I asked her to play back the quote for me on the tape, she said she had turned off the machine... I've talked with my representation, I've now started having my own tape recorder for everything."

On wanting Eva Longoria for The Sentinel:

"As cute as she is, she's got a real jock mentality. Her boyfriend is a basketball player, and I had some sense of how coordinated she was and I thought it would be a good change. I'm someone who has come out of a television series too, and it's a lot easier to make the transition now than when I was on Streets of San Francisco. I thought it would bring in another part of our audience, and I just enjoyed so much, getting to know her. She's a wonderful, wonderful gal. She's been around the block enough that she's not some little kid. She knows what's going on."

The President character in The Sentinel as compared to President Bush

"I don't think our President has many physical resemblances to the one that's in office now. I mean, hopefully, it just works on that political thriller vein and [is] executed well enough, and it's a bit of a slam dance. It runs at about 6,000 RPM, this picture. It doesn't stop. It's always about worrying if you're burning out or over-exhausted, but we've been getting a nice response."

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