Michael Douglas performance as Liberace is being named is greatest ever perforamance.

Douglas, who stars in Behind The Candelabra with fellow Hollywood actor Matt Damon, is being applauded by the critics.

The Telegraph's Robbie Collin regards Michael Douglas’ extraordinary portrayal of Liberace as 'one of the greatest performance the actor has ever given.'

In all of the publicity so far leading up to the May 26 premiere of Behind the Candelbra on HBO, straight stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon have insisted they did not hold back in portraying gay couple Liberace and Scott Thorson.

A new trailer - the first full-length one released so far - was unveiled on Monday (8 April) and indicates that viewers will see the two actors in bed together in intimate scenes and also show Damon emerging slowly from a swimming pool in a speedo.

The first trailer for the upcoming HBO film Behind the Candelabra does not show any sex scenes between the movie's two main characters Liberace and Scott Thorson.

But Entertainment Weekly, which features the film's stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon on its cover - in character - assures us there will be plenty of sex scenes to be seen in the movie.

Matt Damon, sitting with co-star Michael Douglas, director Steven Soderbergh and producer Jerry Weintraub, faced a ballroom filled with journalists on Friday (4 January) to answer questions about the upcoming HBO film Behind the Candelabra about Liberace and his young lover Scott Thorson.

When one journalist asked Damon of he considered the film to be a comedy - perhaps because Liberace was such a flamboyant performer - the actor uttered a quick and definitive 'No.'

Matt Damon has opened up about why he chose not to accept an offer to appear in the film Brokeback Mountain and what the actor who eventually landed that role, Heath Ledger, taught him about kissing other guys as an actor.

Prior to the offer Damon had appeared in The Talented Mr Ripley in 1999 and All The Pretty Horses in 2000.

Damon told Playboy magazine that he told the filmmakers 'I just did a gay movie and a cowboy movie. I can't do a gay cowboy movie now!’

Hollywood actor Matt Damon says he has never denied the gay rumors surrounding him and Ben Affleck because they are ‘offensive’.

Speaking with Playboy magazine, the 42-year-old ‘Bourne Identity’ actor explained the reason behind his silence.

‘I never denied those rumors,’ he said. ‘Because I was offended and didn’t want to offend my friends who were gay, as if being gay were some kind of fucking disease.

‘It put me in a weird position in that sense.’

Matt Damon had played a gay man in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley and pretended to be gay in a memorable 2002 episode of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace.

But he had never before taken on a gay role that required the love scenes like he shared with Michael Douglas in the upcoming HBO film Behind the Candelabra about the late Liberace and his younger lover Scott Thorson.

Filming has begun on new HBO film Beyond the Candelabra starring Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Michael Douglas as gay lovers.

Action star Damon, who turned down the opportunity to star in The Bourne Legacy, was spotted in full 1970s gear including a pastel shirt, khaki trousers and a shaggy blonde wig yesterday (31 August).

Douglas, known for his Oscar-winning role in 1987, is playing the flamboyant pianist Liberace and Damon will be taking on the role of his young partner Scott Thorson.

Cheyenne Jackson, the openly gay actor who has conquered Broadway (Finian's Rainbow, Damn Yankees, Xanadu), television (30 Rock, Glee) and recording (The Power of Two, Drive), is in talks to join the cast of a biopic about the late Liberace which is scheduled to begin shooting this summer.