He's arguably Bermuda's most famous resident but on Monday night film star Michael Douglas mingled with ordinary movie fans at the Island's Liberty Theatre. The actor was taking part in a special "Conservation With..." event at Bermuda International Film Festival, following a screening of his 1993 movie Falling Down. Royal Gazette reporter Sam Strangeways went along.

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The shaggy grey beard is what throws you. That and the almost-white hair and surprisingly slight frame. You look once, you look again. Is that really Michael Douglas?

The famous actor is sitting on a wall in the Liberty Theatre in Hamilton, dressed in a black leather jacket and checked shirt, looking for all the world like it's the most natural place for him to be. In truth, it's a rare thing to spot the Island's best-known resident in a public place, which is presumably why so many people have stumped up $100 for a ticket to see him speak this evening.

And talk he does.

After a special screening of his 1993 film 'Falling Down', he saunters into the auditorium and onto the stage to be gently guided through an hour-long history of his movie career by film journalist David Poland.

Douglas, 61, personally chose to show 'Falling Down' after being asked to take part in the Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) and he explains why: "I sort of picked 'Falling Down' just for everybody down here because that was an example of a movie that nobody wanted to make.

"If you think about it there really isn't a protagonist in the classic sense of the word. It came to me and I loved it."

He says he strongly identified with workers being laid off from the defence industry in southern California and wanted to tell their story. "I was feeling for a lot of these guys who who were patriots and did all the right things for their country and then we said 'thank you very much, we don't need you anymore'.

He admits, to laughs from the audience, that he wasn't keen on his character William 'D-Fens' Foster's flat-top. "The haircut scared me," he admits, demonstrating how his locks were shaved off. He tells how he went into producing after buying the rights to Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' from his father, Kirk Douglas, who had appeared in a Broadway production based on the novel.

It proved to be a good move. He later won an Oscar as co-producer for the movie, aged just 31. Mr. Poland asks him how that felt. "I never thought about being a producer I was just fortunate enough to be involved with that book," he says, adding that at the time he was the star of the hit television show 'Streets of San Francisco'.

"Everyone thought I was crazy to leave a hit show but they let me out which is unheard of today."

He later talks about his second Oscar, jokingly correcting Mr. Poland who thinks it was for best supporting actor for 'Wall Street'.

"It was for best actor," he says.

When asked by a member of the audience what he considers "his 'Champion'", the film many see as his father's best work, he says that the Academy Award for 'Wall Street' and the commercial success of 'Fatal Attraction' that same year (1987), changed his life. "It got me out of the shadow of my father," he says. Later he talks touchingly about his relationship with his dad, describing how the 89-year-old is still writing novels, though recently had his 11th rejected by a publisher.

"I'm so proud of my father," he says. "I was with him and he was getting over his knee surgery and he works with a yellow pad and handwriting. I saw him recently and he said 'Michael, I got my book published'. He went back and did a whole lot of re-writes." Douglas, who married second wife Catherine Zeta Jones in 2000 and has two children with her, plus a son from his first marriage, mentions his "new family" a lot and admits his priorities have changed in the last five or six years.

"I have two young children. I took a three-year sabbatical really. This is not a business where I think you can balance your personal life and your career. Something always takes the lead.

"My career dominated my life for most of my adult experiences and now it's changed. My wife is an accomplished actress and she's a lot younger than I am. She's going to have her time in the spotlight. I'm enjoying being a father." Douglas seems happiest philosophising on films and the current state of the movie industry. He says he welcomes the fact that it's becoming cheaper and easier to get films made.

"Hopefully, economically the cost of making film is coming down so more and more people can be involved," he says. But he laments what he terms the "idolatry" that surrounds celebrities and says the tabloid Press is intrusive. "It's become a feeding frenzy," he says.

He talks affectionately of Bermuda and the time he spent here during his childhood, including his first birthday. His mother, the actress Diana Dill comes from the Island, though he grew up with her in New York after his parents divorced.

For movie fans, it's an insightful and interesting evening. For Michael Douglas fans, it's a whole lot more besides.

Douglas devotee Kathleen Brown, an accountant from Trinidad, stands up and asks her hero if she can shake his hand. He agrees and she says afterwards: "That was fantastic. I never believed that I'd actually meet him."

The night ends as BIFF director Aideen Ratteray Pryse hands Douglas a Prospero Award for artistic excellence. "This is wonderful and I wish you continued success," says Douglas. "This is the ninth year already (of the festival). I think it's great for Bermuda. We love it and we are here to support it any way we can."