Sitting on the balcony of her Beverly Hills home, Sharon Stone regrets that the flirtation is gone. “I’ve noticed that people stop whistling when they see you on the street,” says the Oscar-nominated actress for her roles in Basic Instinct and Casino, and now the star of Ratched, the Netflix drama series created by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy, a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
“Whistling and flirting were funny, but they went down in history. That time is over. Stone shrugged gracefully. People are different now. Technology has put an end to the game of seduction, the personal interaction of a lifetime … It’s something you don’t even see anymore. People don’t flirt face to face anymore. And I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that you or I are already very old, that seems irrelevant to me ».
It is certainly irrelevant in the case of Sharon Stone. Lying on a couch with almost no makeup and wearing a simple white shirt, she is even prettier than when she started following life as a model before turning 20 years old. He said 25 years ago: “I guess people have been doing what I don’t think about me for a long time. I looked like a Barbie, but when I opened my mouth my voice sounded like I had spent my life glued to a bar counter. And he said a few things they didn’t like. Today’s Sharon Stone is nothing like a Barbie doll, but I don’t think she’s changed much.
A few weeks ago, the actress uploaded on Instagram a series of powerful posts detailing the ravages of coronavirus in her family. The disease killed her grandmother and godmother and hospitalized Kelly, her younger sister and brother-in-law. “I ask everyone to wear masks,” he told his followers, whom he urged to “vote for life,” to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And he ended with the phrase: “With women in power, we will fight for families.”
During his own career he had to face toxic masculinity again and again. In recent years he talked about when he learned that the word “futabil” was synonymous with “worthy of a piece of paper” or when he had to work with a director “that morning invited me to sit in his lap to listen to his instructions» .
As he explains, his complaints and objections over the years have played against him. “Since I was not going through the circle, I started to build my reputation for being difficult. That was what they said. Sharon is a difficult actress, it is not easy to work with Sharon … ».
Haven’t things changed since then? “I don’t know,” he says, twisting his face. “Are there those who continue to patronize women and let this really reach you?” He meditates aloud. “What I want to say is that before there were worse, more humiliating situations, but today you have to calculate what kind of aggression you need to get up. Sometimes there are simple details: a look, a nod. And the best thing is to laugh or leave. But there are times when you have to get up, to say “I won’t pass like this”
After a 40-year career, two husbands (she married producer Michael Greenburg between 1984 and 1990 and journalist Phil Bronstein from 1998 to 2004), three adopted children (Roan, 20; Laird, 15; and Quinn, 14). ) and after suffering a severe stroke at the age of 43, Sharon Stone learned a few things. The main thing: “In life you have to fight for what really matters to you.” “I prefer not to waste time or complicate my life with trifles,” she replies when asked if it bothers her to treat her as “precious” or “beloved.” I don’t mind being told such things. And honestly, I don’t care if someone slaps me. I just think these things are such a small victory … Maybe because I’m 62 years old and I’ve lived so long that I know what really needs my attention.
As tired as she is of always talking about the same thing, of one of the film sequences that led to the press of the “pause” button, crossing her legs in Basic Instinct in 1992, Stone does not underestimate the film he made is famous. “That film was a sociological turning point,” he says. As always, he has been widely criticized. When you are brave and play it, when you show your face and do something different, it is clear that they will skin you. But it was worth it. Because it changed the way we see women in movies. The same way of leading women today is different. I don’t think women had a real voice in cinema until then.
I’m going back to college at 58
Stone grew up in Meadville, Pennsylvania, the second of four siblings. His father was a factory worker; his mother, an accountant. A more than remarkable student at the institute, she was transferred to higher education again and again. “Between the ages of 11 and 14, I was fascinated by a few women ahead of their time, such as Gloria Steinem. Feminism was very much alive when I was 12, 13, 14 … Exactly when you start asking yourself questions. What will you do with your life? I looked at those women and said to myself: I want to be like them!
The fact that Steinem was one of Stone’s personal heroines explains why the actress never felt compelled to choose between sexy and serious. Showing both sides, she won the Crawford County Beauty Contest and a scholarship to Edinboro State University, where she studied creative writing and the visual arts. However, it was not long before she parked her studies and began working for a modeling agency in New York. At the age of 22, he left this job and made his film debut as an extra in the comedy Woody Allen Memories (1980). The film that launched her to fame was Total Challenge, where she played an undercover agent posing as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife. The nineties were the peak of his career, when he appeared in Acosada, El specialist, Rápida y mortal and Casino, among others. However, these films were not enough to meet their demands.
He soon joined the HIV / AIDS awareness campaign and over time became a good expert in the scientific literature on the subject. At the age of 58, he returned to university to finish his studies.
I’m interested to know if her decision to return to school was a delayed reaction to the way Hollywood treated her after suffering a stroke with a hemorrhage for nine days in 2001. ” I found that all of a sudden I was nobody, that once again I was the last in line “, she said at that time.
The doctors gave him a one percent chance of surviving. They operated on her for seven hours and inserted 22 coils into her brain. He was rescued, but it took him seven years to recover. “And there were times when I thought I would never be the same again.”
The stroke took place at a particularly difficult time. She and Bronstein were about to divorce; the battle for custody of her son, Roan, made the situation even more painful.
If someone had told you that going through such a traumatic situation could help you if a global pandemic broke out one day, you would have ignored it. But, as he points out, in the case of trauma, the fundamental thing is change. And now I have a much more refined sense of reality, which allows me to realize that life is turning upside down again. For many people, change is very difficult. But anyone who has gone through a heart attack, cancer or traumatic divorce, to give a few examples, knows that situations like this change you exponentially. And what follows is a new life; you are born again ».
“Fantastic Johnny Depp”
Sharon looked at the stunning blue pool at her feet. “I’m curious how we’re going to get out of this coronavirus crisis, because now we’re all ‘reborn’ at the same time.”
She is so fascinated by the concept of being born again that she has twice written a memoir entitled “The Beauty of Life” about the two parts of her existence. It is scheduled to be published in March 2021. “Once your life has taken a similar turn, you come to understand that the only thing that does not change – if you are strong and hold it – is the fundamental core of your personality, my true self. Your integrity, the limits you set … is the only thing you can rely on. “
Their opinions have a certain Zen spirit. Whether we’re talking about Johnny Depp’s recent legal vicissitudes – “I’ve known Johnny since he was a kid and he’s a fantastic uncle; attentive and caring, very friendly and generous. So I feel like the issue has more to do with that lady “- or when I refer to Trump:” Actually, I look at him with empathy. Because it’s heartbreaking to look at. I guess he has some childhood traumas. I see him and tell myself that these traumas, whatever they may be, cause him to be constantly tortured and injured. What a bounce it influences those followers he has, those who come to see him wearing Nazi symbols. There are people with a frightening inner anger, and anger is born of suffering and feelings of insecurity.
It is possible that Stone felt insecure in his day, but this does not seem to be the case in this second existence he is living. He doesn’t even pretend to believe the mantra that “looks doesn’t matter.” “He is a fool; There is no bigger lie, “he laughs. And by the way: you realize especially how important the physique is when it starts to collapse. That’s why you follow a rigorous daily exercise program. “I do 30 knee bends a day and lift some ten-pound lead balls while watching TV, because these days I can’t go to the gym.”