Michael Douglas Slams U.S. Politics While Honoring ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ at Karlovy Vary: “We’re Flirting With Autocracy”

Michael Douglas didn’t just revisit cinematic history while appearing at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival — he also shared his concerns about the future of American democracy.

In town to present a newly restored print of Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Douglas addressed reporters about the state of politics in the U.S. “The nation is currently ‘flirting with autocracy,’” he said, according to Variety.

“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,” Douglas continued. “Politics now seem to be for profit. Money has entered democracy as a profit centre… We maintained an ideal, an idealism in the U.S., which does not exist now.”

He added, “I prefer not to go into too much detail — the news speaks for itself. I myself am worried, I am nervous, and I think it’s all of our responsibility to look out for ourselves.”

The screening marked 50 years since Cuckoo’s Nest premiered in Karlovy Vary. Douglas, who produced the Oscar-winning classic, was joined by producer Paul Zaentz and Forman’s family for the tribute. “It’s a treat to come back here to the scene of the crime,” he said.

Douglas also reflected on the film’s historic Oscar win: “I ask you, in the last 20 years, has there ever been anywhere near that kind of quality of movies there?” (Cuckoo’s Nest beat Jaws, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, and Nashville.)

Zaentz revealed a potential Cuckoo’s Nest TV series is in the works — not a remake, but a new story told through Chief Bromden’s perspective. “At the end of the first series, the Jack Nicholson character would die,” he said. “That I’m OK with, but never a remake.”

He’s also developing a The English Patient series and Backyard Desert, a drama about U.S. border agents encountering a dying Mexican immigrant.

Douglas, meanwhile, said he has no immediate plans to return to acting following his throat cancer battle. “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,” he said. “I say I’m not retired… but otherwise, no.”

That said, he’s developing “one little independent movie” — and in the meantime, he joked, “In the spirit of maintaining a good marriage, I’m happy to play the wife” in his long-time relationship with Catherine Zeta-Jones.