Michael Douglas has all but quit acting

"I have not worked since 2022 purposefully because I realised I had to stop," Variety reports Douglas as saying in a press conference at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic.

"I had been working pretty hard for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set. I have no real intentions of going back. I say I'm not retired because if something special came up, I'd go back, but otherwise, no."

But Douglas admitted he has "one little independent movie" he is "trying to get a good script out of".

However, in the spirit of maintaining a good marriage, he is "happy to play the wife" now and let the career of his spouse Catherine Zeta-Jones take centre stage.

In 2010, the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest actor was diagnosed with cancer and he feels fortunate that he didn't need to undergo surgery, which would have been limiting for his career.

He said: "Stage 4 cancer is not a holiday, but there aren't many choices, are there?

"I went with the program, involving chemo and radiation, and was fortunate. The surgery would have meant not being able to talk and removing part of my jaw and that would have been limiting as an actor."

The Wall Street star also spoke of his fears for the US under the presidency of Donald Trump, noting the country is currently "flirting with autocracy" and idealism has been lost.

"I look at it generally as the fact of how precious democracy is, of how vulnerable it is and how it always has to be protected," he said.

"I hope that what we're struggling with right now is a reminder of all the hard work the Czechs did in gaining their freedom and independence. Politics now seem to be for profit.

"Money has entered democracy as a profit centre. People are going into politics now to make money. We maintained an ideal, an idealism in the US, which does not exist now."