Why Michael Douglas is playing Ben Franklin: ‘I wanted to see how I looked in tights’

PASADENA, Calif. — Sixty years into his acting career, Michael Douglas is OK with tights, but will pass on wigs.

Although he's done plenty of dramas, and tried comedy with Netflix's "The Kominsky Method," "I’ve never done period (pieces)," the veteran actor told the Television Critics Association's press conference promoting his new Apple TV+ series about Benjamin Franklin. He was attracted to the role of the face of the $100 bill because "I wanted to see how I looked in tights."

But Douglas finagled things so "I didn’t have to wear a wig."

With his own long gray hair and the statesman's trademark tiny spectacles, Douglas takes on historical drama in "Franklin" (due April 12) with his characteristic dedication. The series follows the Founding Father during a nearly decade-long span he spent in France as an ambassador for the fledgling Continental Congress trying to secure aid for the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

Franklin did that "at 70 years old," Douglas, 79, points out. "He was a little bit of a philanderer; he liked to imbibe. He was a big flirt. His idea of negotiating was a little bit of a seduction. ... I felt Elon Musk comparisons. A guy who is slightly out there, but also you were aware he was so bright and so knowledgeable on so many things. He was charming. He was taking prisoners."

The actor came away from the production, based on Stacy Schiff’s 2005 book, “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America,” with a much bigger appreciation for American democracy, both then and now.

Douglas says he has a "new appreciation for our constitution and democracy, and realizing how fragile it really was and how close we came to not coming about. Realistically, if we did not get the support from the French we needed ... it would have been the shortest career of democracy that existed."

Democracy wasn't just precarious in 1776, but Douglas says it's also in danger now, especially in a presidential election year. "In this day and age, and this year, (I appreciate) how precious democracy is, how easy it is to lose it and how fragile it is and how much it’s been corrupted in the 250 years since then.

"Our own politics right now is a big disappointment," he added. "I hope that (now) we’ll remember a little bit of what life was when we started. And how precious this concept (of democracy) is that has been distorted."