Oliver Stone returns to 'more complex' 'Wall Street'

THR: What else has changed on Wall Street since the first film?

Stone: It's gotten 10 times bigger, 100 times bigger. No one can control the beast. I think this movie is the opposite of the first movie. The first movie was going into the '80s, when that sense of greed was infinite. Then we had deregulation for 30 years with Reagan, Clinton and the two Bushes. But we're coming to the end of an era. No one can control it, it's so deregulated. No one knows where it's going. We don't know if a market will collapse tomorrow or a currency will collapse. There's constant insecurity. As a result, our economy is complete uncertainty and on medication.

THR: How did Michael Douglas like slipping back into the role?

Stone: Michael was great in this. I thought he was really comfortable, like an old shoe. He loved it.

THR: Do you have any updates on the state of his health?

Stone: At the premiere, about two weeks ago, he looked great. I know he's suffering, it's hard. But he was certainly lifted up by the premiere and the reception to (the film).

THR: How did you decide how Gekko would fare in this new environment?

Stone: We felt our way toward it. The idea was we would go in a complete opposite direction. In the other movie, he was a one-note villain, just interested 24/7 in money, money, money. In this movie, he has no money at the beginning. He's coming out of prison and no one will talk to him. So the idea is he's a smart guy and survivor, a sly fox and a bastard, too. So he makes his way back from nothing. He was always a contrarian, so he makes his fortune in a down market. ... At the same time, because he's an older man, he's closer to death. Who's he going to leave his money to? I think some of the critics have gotten it wrong, frankly. They say that he goes soft. Hardly. He's smart. I think that's a Gekko trait. I think he wants to be a father and a grandfather, but it's about his ego, too.

THR: Even though Gekko was the villain in the first film, his greed-is-good speech became a kind of rallying cry for those who admired him. How do you make a film set in a world of wealth and privilege without glamorizing it?

Stone: You know, Gekko was a crook. I don't think anybody went to Wall Street with the idea that they would go to jail. But I think people related to the fact that he's successful, he's smart. They still do. He's very sly in this new movie -- he's older, he's more mature, he waits. He's very passive in the first part of the movie, he's waiting for his opportunities. At the end of the ball game, he's pretty sharp. People are against Wall Street now, so it's easy to be simple and say it's all black-and-white, but it's not. This is a gray movie. It's really about six people in a shark tank. Each one has a different set of values. It's very hard not to glamorize it. I was criticized for the same thing in the first movie. When I did "World Trade Center," I was underground, in a hole, in the dark after 9/11. In this movie, you look down on New York from the sky. The intention was the same as the old movie

-- it was to make it slick and glossy. We wanted it to look very sexy, because it does to these people. They like this world and its surfaces.