Michael Douglas recalls having to ‘disappoint’ dad Kirk with awkward casting situation

Michael Douglas was one of the producers of 1975’s ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest’

Michael Douglas has opened up about the “rough” moment he told his father, screen legend Kirk Douglas, that he would not be playing the lead role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Kirk had bought the film rights to Ken Kesey’s era-defining 1962 novel about a rebel confined to a mental institution after starring in a theatrical production as lead character Randle McMurphy.

However, after Michael boarded the film as a producer and the film version belatedly gathered steam, Kirk was deemed to have aged out of the role.

The part of McMurphy was instead played by Jack Nicholson. The 1975 film was directed by Miloš Forman and went on to win all five major Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Nicholson.

In a new interview with USA Today, Michael recalled his father’s unhappiness about not playing the part himself. “He was disappointed,” he recalled. “The only thing I know that saved the situation was how good the picture was and how happy he was that a great piece of material did not get ruined.”

Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas together at the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award tribute to Michael Douglas in 2009 (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)

Kirk Douglas, known for starring in Richard Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, died in 2020 at the age of 103.

Michael said his father would often needle him about the decision not to cast him in Cuckoo’s Nest, but that his annoyance was mitigated by the fact he made a substantial profit from the film’s box office success. “I always teased him because he made more money than any picture he ever did off Cuckoo's Nest,” said Michael.

The younger Douglas added that the film was turned down by several studios before going on to be a commercial hit and sweeping the Oscars.

“It was a lesson for everybody. It certainly was great for me," he said. “It gave me such confidence about my instincts, which is such an important [part of] being an actor or a producer.”

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In a recent reappraisal to mark the film’s 50th anniversary for The Independent, critic Xan Brooks wrote: “Most movie classics are the industry’s equivalent of elder statesmen or museum exhibits, coddled by history or pinned under glass. Cuckoo’s Nest, though, continues to twist and turn in our grasp.

“It’s a film of its era – a dinosaur even – and yet it doesn’t feel dated and speaks across party lines. Cuckoo’s Nest loves freedom, self-sufficiency and the pursuit of personal happiness, and is therefore beloved by both old-school hippies and hard-right Maga types. Each side can claim that the film shares their values. Each sees itself in McMurphy while regarding the other side as Nurse Ratched.”