Michael Douglas on 'The Kominsky Method': It's Like 'Grumpy Old Men' 

In the most inspired grownup casting coup since Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in Grace and Frankie, Michael Douglas, 74 (Fatal Attraction), and fellow Oscar winner Alan Arkin, 84 (Argo, Little Miss Sunshine), costar as actor Sandy Kominsky and his best friend and agent Norman in the new Netflix show The Kominsky Method, Douglas’ first TV series role since The Streets of San Francisco (1972-79) and his first-ever comedy-drama devoted to the subject of aging.

“I knew it was going to be good when Alan and I did a scene at the old Hollywood restaurant Musso & Frank Grill — we’d had one meal together, and you watch the scene and you really believe we’ve been friends for 40 years,” says Douglas, who finally got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week after 50 years in the business. “We play actors who came out to L.A. in the ’70s, and Norman [Arkin] wasn’t as successful, so he became an agent, an owner of a fairly major agency. My career seemed very optimistic at the beginning, but didn’t turn out like I’d hoped, nor did my marriages.”

Now they’re like an old couple who quarrel lovingly and inseparably. When Sandy accuses Norman of sugarcoating his rejection for a job by claiming they want him for walk-on parts later, Norman says, “I’m not sugar-coating it. I’m lying!” When Sandy introduces his new love interest Last Man Standing’s Nancy Travis, 57), Norman tells her, “You can do better than him.”

The show, by The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre, 66, has lots of prostate jokes: Norman has lines like, “I urinate in Morse code — dots and dashes.” Douglas’ oldest real-life pal, Danny De Vito, 73, plays his chipper urologist. (Other guest stars include Ann-Margret, 77, Patti LaBelle, 74, Jay Leno, 68, and Psych’s Corbin Bernsen, 64.)

“But it’s not just about the physicalities of aging, like a lot of the shows about aging are,” Douglas says. “It’s about a long-standing friendship, a bit like Grumpy Old Men.” Though it’s relationship-based, like his The China Syndrome costar Fonda’s show with Tomlin, it’s quite different. “Mostly, it’s a tonal difference,” he says. “Theirs is a bit broader.” Grace and Frankie is more like a traditional sitcom, while Kominsky Method creator Lorre is trying to grow his talent by branching out from sitcoms (like his flop show about pot culture, Disjointed) into a show that’s more like an eight-hour indie film — kind of like the great films Douglas used to do before trends forced him (and other A-list actors) to switch mostly to superhero epics (Ant-Man, in which he’s the first Marvel actor ever de-aged by CGI technology so that he looks 30 years younger) and prestige TV (Behind the Candelabra won him an Emmy).