Sharon Stone on Her Best Movie Roles: ‘Basic Instinct,’ ‘Casino,’ and More

Sharon Stone has been asked to play the villain so many times in her career that she’s lost count.

But she gets it. Her most famous role, playing the ice-pick-wielding seductress Catherine Tramell in the 1992 sensation “Basic Instinct,” turned her from a 1980s B-movie starlet into an international sex symbol, while her character instantly became an iconic movie villain.

So when she got the call recently from Universal asking if she’d be up for playing the baddie in “Nobody 2,” the sequel to the ultra-violent 2021 thriller starring Bob Odenkirk as an unlikely assassin, she was ready to pass.

“I just don’t want to play a cookie-cutter villain, which is something that I really have a thing about,” Stone, 67, told Business Insider over Zoom from her home, sporting light blue shades she’d often take off when she got excited while telling a story.

“After ‘Basic Instinct,’ everybody wanted me to play a villain. But that was not cookie-cutter; it was a villain that touched upon the zeitgeist of the moment. That was why it was so specifically successful, and why it remains interesting to watch.”

So Stone came back to the studio with an idea for a character she’d been thinking about playing since watching her three sons play violent video games during the pandemic.

“It was like living in a frat house, they were all screaming out of their rooms while they were playing,” Stone recalled. “There is no cruelty like the kind that came out of those computers. So this character I made up came through that. I said, ‘I want to play a character that essentially comes right out of social media.'”

It resulted in Stone delivering a ruthless and delightfully unhinged performance as Lendina, a crime boss who causes trouble for Odenkirk’s character Hutch while he’s vacationing with his family.

Stone’s recollections of “Nobody 2” were just a warm-up for the stories she told me while reminiscing about her legendary career. From breaking down her confrontational first meeting with Michael Douglas before auditioning for “Basic Instinct,” to sharing her reaction to getting slapped by Gene Hackman in “The Quick and the Dead,” to plotting to play the late comic legend Phyllis Diller in a biopic, Stone’s decades in Hollywood have been as fruitful as they are colorful. Below, she looks back at some of her most memorable roles.

On roller-skating to auditions and getting cast by Woody Allen

Business Insider: In the 1970s, you did a lot of modeling. What led you to acting? 

Sharon Stone: I’m still modeling, and I still make more money today modeling than in film. It’s still a huge part of my reality. But back then, I wanted to be a director, but the pesky vagina has stood in my way because how could you possibly have a brain and a vagina? It seems to have confounded so many. 

How did you land that now-memorable shot of you inside the train in Woody Allen’s “Stardust Memories”?

The casting agent Riccardo Bertoni cast extras in New York. He was a guy who really saw talent. He helped Sly [Stallone] get “Rocky” made. He saw me and said, “Girl, you’re a star, and I’m going to get you in front of people.”

I didn’t have any money, so I would roller skate to all my modeling appointments. This was back in the Studio 54 period of New York City.

I went over to Riccardo’s, and he told me that Juliet Taylor was casting extras for this Woody Allen movie. He told me to go to this bus stop. Woody was actually sitting at the bus stop. Juliet had a podium placed in front of it, and she would look at everyone’s headshots.

So I rollerskated over there and had my giant modeling portfolio with me and showed it to her. She turned around and passed it to Woody in the bus stop. Then she said, “Woody would like you to sit down with him.” So I skated into the bus stop and sat with Woody, and he looked at my stuff and didn’t say anything, and handed it back to me, and I skated away. And I later found out I got the job. 

On the day of shooting, the 1st AD came out and he said, “Sharon, there was a girl who was going to play a part and she’s sick. Woody’s going to come out and talk to you.” Woody comes over and tells me, “I want you to do this job; it’s today.”

I was self-conscious. I was 19 and they put me in this tight dress, and I was so awkward about my body. The hair person put a real gardenia in my hair. It really meant the world to me that she did that. It made me feel important. And then Gordon Willis was the DP, the man who shot “The Godfather.” It was an amazing experience.

On her contentious first encounter with Michael Douglas before they costarred in ‘Basic Instinct’

Did Paul Verhoeven ever bring up “Basic Instinct” to you when you two made “Total Recall”?

No, and what happened was I wanted the part, but nobody would give me the script. So my manager, Chuck Binder, broke into the office by picking the lock with his credit card and stole the “Basic Instinct” script for me. I read it and I said, “I’m having this part.”

Everyone they went out to would turn it down. But the thing was, Michael Douglas did not want to put his bare ass out on the screen with an unknown — and I understood that. He wouldn’t even test with me, but that was also for a different reason: We had an argument prior to that. 

This was at Cannes. A bunch of us were all sitting, and he was talking about someone and their kids. I really, really knew this person he was talking about. So I said something and he responded to me, saying, “What the fuck do you know?” It was in regard to a father-child relationship. Clearly, it triggered him.

So he screams this at me across a whole group of people. And I’m not the person who goes, “Oh, excuse me, superstar.” I pushed back my chair and said to him, “Let’s step outside.” That’s how we first met. 

Did you two step outside?

Yeah, and I explained to him what the fuck I knew about this family he was speaking about, and that I was best friends with the children and the parent. And then we parted. I wouldn’t say as best friends, but amicably. So, fast forward to casting “Basic Instinct,” I don’t think he wanted me to be his costar. [Laughs.]

(Editor’s note: Michael Douglas did not reply to a request for comment.)

But I would imagine that tension between you two fueled the dynamic your characters had in the movie. 

It worked great because I was not rattled if he yelled at me. That was interesting for the character because Michael has a temper, and I didn’t care. That worked very well in our dynamic. Eventually, we became the greatest of friends, to this day. I admire him tremendously.

The role of Catherine Tramell made you an icon, but you had a price to pay. From the way you learned what was shown in the leg-crossing scene to the custody battle you endured afterward with your child, if you could do it all over again, would you take the role?

It made me an icon, but it didn’t bring me respect. But would I do it again? We don’t get to make these choices in life. I don’t participate in the fantasy world in this way.

What I did with what happened is exactly the way I wanted to do it. Verhoeven and I have a wonderful relationship. I would work with him again in a second. We both understand. Even though we have different public ways of discussing it, we understand very well what happened regarding the crotch scene.

I very much believe that none of us knew at the time what we were getting in regard to that shot, and when Paul got it, he didn’t want to lose it, and he was scared to show me. And I get that.

Once I had time to calm down, I didn’t make him take it out of the movie when I had the legal right to. So I did have the chance to do it differently, and I didn’t because once I had the chance to step back, I understood, as the director, not the girl in the film, that that made the movie better. 

On getting slapped by Gene Hackman in ‘The Quick and the Dead’ and Robert De Niro getting under her skin in ‘Casino’

Is the legend true that while shooting “The Quick and the Dead,” the scene where Gene Hackman slaps you was improvised?

Yes. And it’s also true that right after he did it, I grabbed him by his lapels and picked him up off his feet. The people who played our bodyguards in the scene didn’t know what to do, so they all cocked their rifles. And [director] Sam [Raimi] yelled, “CUT! CUT! CUT! EVERYBODY CALM DOWN!” [Laughs.] 

Did Gene give any explanation for why he slapped you?

No, and I don’t think there should be. I think it’s good. I have worked with actors who really get cranked up in their performances and can get violent in their work. We talk before we work, or I know going in. 

In “Casino,” was it more fun working across from Robert De Niro or Joe Pesci?

It’s apples and oranges. Joey really, really fought for me to be seen and get the job. So I have a serious loyalty to Joey because he’s always backed me. It was always Joey and Jimmy Caan. They backed me since I was 19.

I always wanted to work with Bob. I had auditioned with him many times before “Casino.” It was my dream to work with De Niro and hold my own.

There’s a scene in the movie where we’re sitting across a table arguing, and he says to me, “You’re a good actress, you know that?” And I remember in that scene when he said it, how furious it made me because it was my dream to do it, and then he challenged me at the table. I remember thinking, “Oh, buddy. Not today, pal.”

He knew every button to go for with me because he is the greatest observational actor. He can crawl under your skin and get in there.

On wanting to make a Phyllis Diller biopic and learning her laugh

Do you want to play Phyllis Diller one day?

I do want to play Phyllis Diller very, very badly. She and I were very close friends. Phyllis made little paintings for all my kids. She cooked me dinner a lot of times — that woman could cook. I told her I wanted to play her, and she sat down and taught me her laugh. She made me practice her laugh!

Are you actively trying to get a biopic off the ground?

I’m trying. You know, she didn’t hit it big until she was 49. She lived in a trailer park with five kids and her schizophrenic husband, and practiced her act on women at the laundromat. It’s unbelievable. I think there are great actors who could play Bob Hope, Red Buttons, Johnny Carson. Sam Rockwell could play Johnny in his sleep. We were tight. Yes, I’m desperate to play her. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

“Nobody 2” hits theaters August 15.

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