Having discussed Matt Damon's performance in this film, we were inevitably going to return and talk about Michael Douglas, too! Douglas has made a whole career out of playing tough alpha males; sometimes vicious ones. This is the same man who played Gordon Gecko in 'Wall Street,' but here is displaying his incredible range as an actor.
In some respects, the casting made perfect sense. Liberace always pretended to the world that he was straight, and so casting a straight actor helped to portray the underlying conflict within his character. Douglas completely disappeared into the part, giving a performance worlds away from the many roles he's played in which 'getting the girl' was part and parcel of the script. You could almost have forgotten that he's been in one of Hollywood's most famous marriages with Catherine Zeta-Jones for nearly twenty years.