Gwyneth Paltrow portrayed Michael Douglas’ much younger wife in the 1998 thriller A Perfect Murder. And because of their age difference, Douglas couldn’t help poke fun at Paltrow’s father about it.
Douglas and Paltrow first collaborated in the 1998 feature A Perfect Murder, where Paltrow played the Ant-Man star’s unfaithful wife. But it wasn’t the first time Douglas met Paltrow. The two were already well acquainted with each other since Douglas was already friends with his co-star’s father. Paltrow’s father Bruce was a respected filmmaker and producer in his own right. His daughter, however, had a bit more success in the film industry, which Bruce Paltrow couldn’t have been prouder of.
“I always say the same thing – I say I’m as proud and as happy as any father of any child who’s successful. I was proud of her before she was famous and I’m proud of her now – she’s my child,” Bruce Paltrow once told The Guardian.
He was also very supportive of most of his daughter’s film roles. But working with Douglas on A Perfect Murder was the only movie that made him pause. At the time, Douglas was only one year younger than Paltrow’s father.
“That was the only time I sort of went, whoa…you’re working with Michael? What are you talking about? What’s going on here, this is disgusting! But Gwyneth said, ‘Dad’, she’d say, ‘Dehhhhd’… it’s a shame you can’t get the inflection of that in print. Then I thought, you know, they’re actors,” he said.
Both Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow commented on how strange it was playing a couple in the feature. Especially when Douglas knew Paltrow almost as long as her family did.
“I’ve known Gwyneth since she was a little girl sitting on my knee,” Douglas once told The Morning Call. “Now she’s a big girl sitting on my knee.”
Meanwhile, Paltrow realized how odd it would look if Douglas and her were an actual item. But their marriage was a nice set-up for A Perfect Murder, as their age difference intentionally served the film’s narrative.
“Obviously it would be creepy if in real life I was married to Michael Douglas,” she said. “But in the context of the film, it makes sense. The reason it’s less creepy in this film than others is because it works as a plot point. There should be an uncomfortable age difference between these two people.”
A Perfect Murder didn’t have any graphic love scenes between the two actors. There were rumors back then that Paltrow’s father had the scenes cut. But the Shakespeare in Love star revealed there were no love scenes to cut at all. Douglas kept teasing Bruce Paltrow about his onscreen marriage to his daughter, which sparked the gossip.
“There was never any love scene shot,” Paltrow said. “That rumor got started because Michael was always teasing my dad about the physical contact he had with me in the movie. It wasn’t anything but old friends ribbing each other.”
Douglas revealed that he played a particularly sinister character in the Gwyneth Paltrow feature. But it was a role the Basic Instinct star enjoyed. He felt it was easier for actors to excel playing villains.
“With some characters you just say, well, I can be me,” Douglas once said in an interview with Cigaraficionado. “But one of the greatest things about being an outright villain, which I play in my new film, A Perfect Murder, is that it entitles you to do anything, just anything. So that, in itself, is a great freedom. There are no social boundaries; you just get to lay it out there. So in truth, you don’t have to research that much. You just get to play around in your dark side without ever having to be responsible for it.”