It’s a rare thing for a single performance to encapsulate an era, but I think there’s a fair argument to be made that Michael Douglas’ work in Wall Street is a terrific example of it. There were still a few years left in the 1980s when the Oliver Stone movie first arrived in theaters, but Douglas’ turn as the villainous, avaricious Gordon Gekko is a perfect representation of the hyper capitalism that defined the penultimate decade of the 20th century (summed up in the iconic line “Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good”).
It’s a sharp and vicious performance – and the story of how it was cultivated is pretty shocking. During a recent interview on Turner Classic Movies (via People), Douglas spoke about how things didn’t go swimmingly in early days of making Wall Street, with the actor being on the receiving end of some brutal criticism from his director. He explained that he had a sitdown with Stone that featured some extremely blunt feedback, saying,
