in a lot of ways sharon stone is the
very picture of a movie star
bursting onto hollywood's a-list with
her unforgettable performance in basic
instinct in 1992
and then earning a best actress oscar
nomination playing opposite
robert de niro in casino but around that
success
there's been struggle first as a girl
growing up in working class pennsylvania
and then with a near-death experience 20
years ago
two weeks after 9 11 stone suffered a
stroke that changed her life
and serves as the pivotal moment in her
new memoir
the beauty of living twice willie and
sharon got together recently for a
virtual sunday sit down
it's looking a little messy behind me
let's see if i can clean it up
i want to talk about your book but
before we begin my goodness we have to
talk about what's over your shoulder
because that is a sharon stone original
you know i
love to paint when covet happened and
there was no
acting i went for painting i'm actually
going to frame it because i'm so
dang proud of myself that i did
something
the other labor of love for you over
this last year or so
is this book the box just came saturday
that had actual books in it and i opened
the box and i was like
i wrote a book i wrote a book i wrote a
book
in telling her life's story sharon stone
begins with the moment it nearly ended
the book opens with a breathtaking scene
of you in the hospital
you have this massive stroke you make a
phone call to your mothers you better
get here quickly and
i mean did you feel in that moment
sharon like you might die
when the room is so silent and no one's
running around
trying to fix you that's when you
realize
how near death is and how serious
everything
is you write about the light the feeling
of falling
seeing people who had passed i found out
that i wasn't the only one
who'd had this kind of experience it's
so profound
when you talk about the sort of this
second life living twice
is there a silver lining somewhere in
what happened to you in september of
2001
oh my god yes you know we're here to
learn our lessons
i hope that i was humble and available
to my lesson because i don't want to do
it again
those lessons began in rural meadville
pennsylvania
where stone was raised with her sister
and two brothers
by a father who worked in a tool and die
factory
and a mother who practiced tough love
did you look then sharon at performing
as some way
out of the life that you saw your
parents having no one thought that's
what i should do
because i was a little kid who tested
with a high iq
and was pushed through school you know
five years old in the second grade
college at 15 i think yes 15. which is
unbelievable
my brother got in a lot of trouble my
brother was a drug dealer
everyone really felt like i might be
safer if you could imagine
going to new york as a teenager to model
than staying
hanging around while my brother was
getting in more and more trouble
stone was 19 when she signed with the
ford modeling agency
and began working around the world in
1980
she landed a bit part in the woody allen
film
stardust memories diets right when you
want to change
for the next decade stone moved from one
modest
acting gig to the next i've done lots
and lots and lots of television playing
like
from queens that were insane
and i had to make them all insane or
drunk or crazy because the parts were so
stupid i'm sorry i didn't get them all
in 1990 the hustle paid off
with a starring role opposite arnold
schwarzenegger
in the box office hit total recall
you are somebody the man i love
what was that experience like huge
budget that a movie made over 100
million dollars you're with one of the
biggest movie stars in the world at the
time
well it was very clear to me that arnold
was the biggest star and
i had these fight sequences to do i
studied
martial arts like three hours a day
three days a week
so i gained 25 pounds
of muscle and worked out
like a crazy person after that breakout
performance
stone was called in to test for an
upcoming michael douglas movie
called basic instinct i have a fondness
for white silk scarves
they're good for all occasions stone
landed the intense role
that overnight made her an international
obsession when we took basic instinct to
can
i didn't have money for a dress i didn't
have money
for protection when i left the grand
palais
and was suddenly a star fans while i was
at the premiere had taken all my clothes
my contact lenses my toothbrush
everything out of my suite
outside the hotel is filled with
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
people
and this is my introduction to fame all
of a sudden you are
sharon stone from basic instinct how do
you deal with that
suddenly you don't know where your life
went it just went
and then that's it i have nothing to
hide
part of the hysteria around the
blockbuster movie
had to do with the most famous and
revealing
police interrogation scene in hollywood
history
almost 30 years later people say oh
right sharon stone played that
sexualized role in basic instinct that's
who sharon stone is do you still feel
that today
i made you know a hundred other movies
yeah and i won an emmy and i was
nominated for what four golden globes
you know i told you i was hot today
stone won a golden globe and proved she
was more than a sex symbol
playing her oscar-nominated role as
ginger
in the martin scorsese classic casino
did casino feel like some kind of
validation of what you knew
and you felt in your performances
throughout your career people still
can't get off the basic instinct thing
they still wouldn't think the movie was
successful because they saw a half of a
frame
of possibly looking up my skirt they
still want to think that the movie was
successful
not because michael and i crushed it
it's a movie that you still watch every
time it turns on your tv
i know you do so like you can say
whatever you want to say but i'm the one
that's getting the residual check
i'm not stupid today the 63 year old
stone
is happily living her second life acting
modeling and sharing a full house with
her three sons
it feels like you're in a good place am
i right i'm in a really
grateful place to be in this frat house
during coco
he needs to reach gigantic voice has
been
a lot of fun when i was a kid i always
wanted to have a house full of
kids running and screaming and dogs and
i got it and i feel very blessed and
happy about the life
i got
sharon stone's memoir is called the
beauty of living twice
it's available for pre-order now and
will be released on tuesday
and don't forget to subscribe to the
sunday sit down podcast to hear willie's
full-length interview with sharon stone
you can find it on apple podcasts or
wherever you get yours
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