Veteran says that there are too many ‘sensitive young men’ in US film, allowing more macho and better trained Australian and British actors to take meaty roles

Dustin Hoffman: film is the worst it has ever been Read more

Days after Dustin Hoffman said that films had never been worse than they are today, fellow actor Michael Douglas has spoken out about what he believes to be “a crisis in young American actors right now”. The actor said they are overly concerned about their image and lack machismo.

“Everyone’s much more image conscious than they are about actually playing the part,” Douglas said in an interview with the Independent. According to the two-time Oscar winner, an American obsession with image and social media has enabled international actors to take many of the top American roles away from US male actors.

“Clearly, it breaks down on two fronts,” he said. “In Britain they take their training seriously while in the States, we’re going through a sort of social media image-conscious thing rather than formal training. Many actors are getting caught up in this image thing which is going on to affect their range.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Pratt: a rare breed, according to Michael Douglas. Photograph: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Douglas added that Australian male actors are favoured over US talent for their masculinity. “In the US we have this relatively asexual or unisex area with sensitive young men and we don’t have many Channing Tatums or Chris Pratts, while the Aussies do,” he said. “It’s a phenomena.”

This doesn’t mark the first time that Douglas has spoken about his concern for the current generation of young American male actors. In a February interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor addressed the “crisis”.

“The issue I hear from casting agents is that young American actors now are very self-conscious of their image,” he said. “So rather than playing truthful and themselves – it might be because of so much cable, so much stuff on the internet – they’re almost kind of capturing an image of what they think they should be, rather than playing it.”