Sandy Kominsky

Sandy Kominsky is a onetime promising actor who never quite broke through and now runs a respected Hollywood acting studio, dispensing hard-won wisdom to students half his age. Divorced, aging, and increasingly at odds with his own body, he leans on dry wit and stubborn vanity to avoid admitting how much is slipping away from him.

Michael Douglas plays him with the ease of a man who has spent decades being charming and is only now discovering that charm has limits. The writing lets Sandy be pompous and self-pitying without losing our affection, mining real comedy from mortality, friendship, and an actor's inability to stop performing even alone.