Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Sharon Stone

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

In many ways, Sharon Stone is the very picture of a movie star – bursting onto the scene with her unforgettable performance in Basic Instinct and earning an Oscar nomination for her role in Casino. But around that success there has been a great deal of struggle. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with Stone to talk about her journey from a small town in Pennsylvania to Hollywood’s A-List and her new book The Beauty of Living Twice about her near-death experience 20 years ago.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. I'm very excited to share this one with you this week with Sharon Stone, a Hollywood icon, a term that's often overused but certainly applies in this case. She's got an amazing story and put it all down in writing in her new memoir called The Beauty of Living Twice. It tracks her life from a childhood in rural Pennsylvania, moves her into New York, New York City where she started modeling and then got into the movie business first, did you know, in a Woody Allen film in 1980. But the part about living twice is where we begin our conversation.

You may not know this or you just may not remember, but in September of 2001, while we all were so consumed, obviously, with the events of September 11th, Sharon Stone had a massive brain hemorrhage. She had a stroke, and it stayed with her for years, actually. She thought she was going to die, as you'll hear us discuss. And she talks about being reborn in that moment and figuring out what was important to her and figuring out how to get her life back and figuring out how to change her life. So there's a lot to talk about what a life she has lived. You probably don't know a lot of the details of it.

They're all in the book. We get to a lot of it in this conversation. And we begin, I should point out, with a little housekeeping. So as we've been doing these conversations over Zoom, you know that I'm in a room above my garage. Sharon Stone is at her home in Los Angeles, and she was trying to get her backdrop just right, because as you know, these are shot for television for Sunday today on NBC. So she was moving stuff around. She said, wait, I have a better idea.

She pulls out a beautiful watercolor painting, sets it down. She said, how's that? I said, it's perfect. It looks great. And she said, you know what? I painted that. Turns out she's been a painter since way back, kind of lost it, but has found it again during quarantine. So we're going to talk about her painting.

We're going to talk about her amazing. life, her career. Yes, basic instinct. She has some thoughts about that. She has some thoughts about the way you feel about basic instinct, too. A lot to get to was Sharon Stone right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Sharon, thank you for doing this. It's great to see you. It's so nice to see you. So 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. Tell me about this painting talent of yours. You know, I love to paint.

And when I went to school, when I went to college, when I was so little, I was 15 when I started college, but painting and writing were why I went to college. I went to school on a writing scholarship, but I also studied painting.

Bless you. Thank you. Bless you. You know, I have to laugh because I picked acting to do because I thought, you know, that's the thing I can learn to make a living with. But painting and writing were really the things that I really liked to do. But I didn't think I would be good enough to make a living. But now that, you know, when COVID happened and there was no acting, I went back to the writing and I went back to the painting.

And at the beginning of COVID, I did paint by numbers because I wanted to remember how to push the paint around. And I wanted to redefine my skill set. So I got an adult paint by numbers because I felt it would be really smart way to give myself a painting lesson at home because we couldn't get a painting teachers, right? We couldn't go to class. And so I did that. And art news made a big deal out of it. And then I sold my painting to raise some money for COVID. And then I started painting and sketching on my own.

And last weekend, I decided it's time to make a painting. Frankly, I decided to sell a painting that was over my bed to make a little extra dough because there was no acting. And then I saw this empty space and I had a canvas on my easel and I was just like, girl, let's do a painting for over the bed. You got to get it together. You can't have an empty space. And so I started painting, I got a watercolor canvas.

Right. And at the same time, my friend Valley O'Reilly sent me some new makeup brushes. And I was starting to push this paint around and I thought, I need a softer brush. And I walked in my bathroom to get some more water and there were these gorgeous makeup brushes. And I thought, well, if I use this one and this one, those are really the ones I'm using for my makeup. and they were so good. And then I kept coming back in thinking, I really want them for my face,

but they're working so great on the painting. I kept negotiating with myself, the ones I was going to save for my makeup. And eventually, they were working so beautifully on the painting that I had to go buy another set of the brushes. These makeup brushes are so soft. And, you know, when you're working with watercolor, you can't stop in the middle of the,

of the painting because when you go back to it, unless everything is the equal amount, when you have to learn that, the equal amount of dampness, all the paint comes off the canvas, which is what I learned this weekend in my first big watercolor, because you have to keep going because it dries and then you're, you know, so you kind of have to keep going and keep going and keep going until it's done. So this was my first big watercolor, which I called Mother Earth, because this is the woman and the underside of her chin

and this coming up her head, and she's kind of laying down in my mind, in my... Yeah, no, I see it. ...expression there. But I, yeah, that was... And I was so excited that it turned out. And I learned a lot painting it, and I think I'm actually going to frame it

because I'm so dang proud of myself that I should. Let's get that over the bed where there's that missing space, right? Exactly. So, you know, when you think you can't do anything else and you push yourself all of a sudden, this is a great time to learn a language, a great time to learn another skill. Everybody's learned how to make banana bread except me. Everybody is learning all these great new things. And I think it's terribly exciting and wonderful.

Did you surprise yourself by what came out on the canvas? You didn't know how this was going to go. It'd been a few years. Get over it. I'm kind of like, I painted a painting. I can paint. Well, I am impressed. That is really good.

Let's get that up on the walls. And keep it coming. Maybe this is a new thing for you, right? Painting. I do so because I enjoyed it so much. And I really enjoyed communing with the artistic spirits. That was the main part that I enjoyed was the feeling that there were artists

who were willing to talk to me while I painted. I feel like it's not you. It's always the muse. I watched Elizabeth Gilchrist's TED Talk, and I was very, very inspired by her. After she wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and everyone told her she was such a genius. She did this great talk about what is,

is the meaning of genius. And that in the olden days, when they saw people do something wonderful on stage, they said, Allah, Allah, because they saw God in the performer. And I so believe that's true that you have to open yourself to spirit. And that spirit will help you when you are open and you really want to be expressive. that it comes from something outside of yourself and that you are meant to be a worthy conduit. And Elizabeth Gilchrist explained this so beautifully

in that TED talk about her muse and that coming to realize that genius is a thing that you channel. It's not really a thing that you are. And that was really beautiful, I think, and very freeing. Paul Verhoeven talked to me about that when we were doing basic instinct, that it was an angel that would fly through me

and I should get out of its way. And I believe that that's true and that anything that I've done that's good was me allowing that to occur. So maybe a spirit was guiding those makeup brushes along the... I think so. Along the canvas. I really quite sincerely do think that.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned the other work of art that you've been a labor of love for you over this last year or something. so, and it is this book, which as I said to you, I've been lost in your life for the last couple of of days. I got one, too. You got one, too.

Mine's all marked up. Yours looks better than mine. Mine just came. The box just came Saturday that had actual books in it. And I opened the box and I was like, I wrote a book. Like until now, we've been talking about this abstract thing. And then suddenly I was holding the practical thing. Like the painting.

I'm like, what's happening in my life? Well, especially with this book, Sharon, because it's not just any book. You've sort of pulled your chest open and are revealing yourself and your life. And you're talking about things you've maybe never talked about publicly before. So what is it? Or privately, I like to add. Or privately, right, in some cases. So what does it feel like on the eve of the release of this book that, my gosh, all these things that I've kept to myself for all these years now?

are out in public view. You know, Willie, when I first faced the reality that I had done this thing, I was traumatized and freaked out that I had done it. And then I actually stepped into it. And I feel so at peace with myself and so happy and so centered and so calm. there's there's nothing more free than standing centered in yourself. And I tell my friends that my new mantra is, it's never too late to become yourself. And I think that in life and very much in American life, and there's this whole drive,

particularly in social media and in advertising. in news that we're supposed to be a certain thing. And so we develop these very intense social masks to try to be more and more like a thing because we've all been bullied. We've all been made fun of. We've all been hurt in some way. And coming out of that, we shield ourselves. And I think there's nothing more freeing than being able to put all that down and just get

back to being ourselves. ourselves, just get back to the simplicity of a safe place where we get to be who we really are. And of course, that's going to mean we're going to have to, you know, let certain people go out of our lives and we're going to have to face certain truths that aren't always beautiful about ourselves and others. But it does really give us a lot of space to do things like paint or whatever is in our actual genuine core. And I am finding that the genuine me is a lot, I don't know, it's cooler to me. I like the real me better than the fabrication.

The book opens with a breathtaking scene of you in the hospital. And the title is The Beauty of Living Twice, and here's where the second life starts, I guess, after this moment, which I have to say because of when it happened in late September of 2001 and the world was so focused on 9-11 that it wasn't, I looked it up and there were some news stories, but we were so consumed by 9-11, I didn't recall it exactly until I read about it. And my gosh, it changed everything in your life. And so many people's lives were changed during that month. And I think that is why.

in large part, I felt like this book might be of service. You know, mine wasn't the only life that changed in September of 2001. Many, many, many people's lives changed that month. And the world changed and not for the better in that month. And since that time, we've seen a tremendous amount of greed and masking. and disappointment. And I think that we all need to stop and think about what trauma looks like and what trauma does and how we can all be different towards one another where trauma is concerned and not keep

retramatizing everybody simply for the sensationalistic value of trauma itself. And, you know, lots and lots and lots of people were devastated. in September of 2001. And I was just one of them. I mean, for people who don't know, you have this massive brain hemorrhage, and you're in the hospital, and you make a phone call. Stroke. Yeah, stroke.

You make a phone call to your mother, so you better get here quickly. And, I mean, did you feel in that moment, Sharon, like you might die? I knew that death was certainly an imminent possibility. I knew for sure in that moment that I could and probably would lose my ability to speak. I was starting to lose functionality already. I was starting to lose feeling. I'd lost feeling in one of my legs. I was losing the hearing in my right ear.

I was starting to lose a visual perspective. It was clear to me that I was going to lose. functionality. I wasn't sure how much or if I'd ever get any of it back, but it was clear it was going and going fast. Death wasn't something that I was really thinking about in that second because I was just trying to see if I was going to be able to communicate anything because it was so tenuous in that seconds, those few seconds, before. I actually did start to die, that the doctor had excused everyone from the room, and the room was so silent.

And 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. and when he told me that they were sending another ambulance to take me to a more serious hospital, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a more serious hospital. And that's when they moved me to the neurological hospital to the neurological ward before I had the death experience. So this was right before the death experience and right. before they moved me. And yeah, I mean, I was just pretty much trying to lock in with the doctor, process what he

was telling me, get the information to my family before I passed out again. I mean, you write vividly about the experience of almost dying. You write about the light, the feeling of falling, seeing people. who had passed, friends of yours, people you loved and cared for in some of their final moments. What can you share about that experience? Because I think people are going to be fascinated to hear what it was like for you. One of the more intriguing aspects of having a near-death experience, Willie, is that I found out that I wasn't the only one who'd had this kind of experience. And I think I was nominated for something

where they were running me for an Emmy nomination. But I was at an Emmy suite, nevertheless. And one of the kids from the parkland shooting came and sat down beside me. And he just put his hand on my knee or my hand. And without saying anything, I knew that it had happened to him. And I didn't even know him. And I turned and looked at him.

And he said, we've had a similar experience. And I looked at him and I knew. And he said, I was in the parkland shooting. And I said, oh, honey. And he said, yeah, I was shot and I went back in to get someone. And I had the near-death experience. and we started discussing it. And I think something happens to you when you've had this experience.

And suddenly another person from across the room came over and stood by us and we looked up. And that person just had this sort of glow. And they looked at us and they said, I had the same experience. And they had been through another violent, experience, a shooting, and had had a near-death experience. And we sat down together and talked. And it was such an extraordinary experience to be with them. Both of them had been a subject of gun violence.

and the feeling that I had with them was so incredibly moving, so profound. And it was so clear among the three of us that we had both survived for specific purpose and that we all had purpose-driven lives. and that we had almost been requested, would we stay and live? Would we choose to live? Would we choose to be of purpose? And we all agreed that our choice, the three of us, was to be warriors of light,

and that we were so grateful to have met each other and so grateful to have this understanding known by someone else. It's a very hard thing to explain to someone who hasn't had it, but my mom, during COVID, had two heart attacks, five stints and a pacemaker. And she's here with me, and we believe that,

this book is our purpose. And part of it, certainly for me, not really all of it, I don't think, because I'm busy. But certainly for my mom, who has changed your life significantly and is such a firecracker. But I really do think that when you have this experience, it's so profound. And I know that scientists feel that it's a scientific thing that happens. And spiritualists believe that it's a spiritual thing. Personally, I'm with Einstein who believe that it's both. And I am a very science-driven person.

But I also really believe in the theory of let go and let God. Because when I do that, I end up on the Willie Geist show. Well, if this is where he's brought to you, I'm grateful for it. So that's good for both of us. It's so fascinating to hear you talk about this unspoken bond that you felt with those two other people. I didn't know that. And then to take that as a message of purpose for yourself. So you talked about the book, but it seems to me there's sort of a before and after that moment in your life.

And so what? What did you view as the after? How did you need to live differently? Or what was that new purpose that you saw for yourself? Did it mean that being this beautiful movie star was suddenly less important to you? I don't think it's like that, really. I mean, it's difficult to survive. It is not easy to survive a massive trauma.

It's not easy to survive a nine-day brain hemorrhage. stroke. It's not easy to survive being shot in the Parkland case. It's not easy to survive being shot in the head like Gabby Griffith. You know, I'm reading her story now that's in Vanity Fair. It's not easy. But talk about a purpose-driven life, right? And but if you choose this, there is an effect of your courage. There's an effect of your choice, which says, Jesus, why is this person doing this?

Like, what's the win here? You know? And it means that you have to walk with integrity, whatever the cost is. And it doesn't mean there aren't costs. There's constant costs. There's constant resistance. of course. It's it's not like you know you're just constantly falling on doves you know so it's you have to be

you have to be willing to stand in your truth and you know it's not like everybody's a huge fan of the truth cut to the last four years. That's the and it continues it continues that way. You're talking about your your mother there's a you describe lying with your mom and reading the book to her and being a little bit nervous about how that was going to go. What was her reaction to the book? Because it's one of the beautiful arcs of your story, is the way you talk about your young life with your mom and how your relationship has grown since.

Well, that's the joy of the whole thing that I wrote my book, read it to my mom. Then I hit voice memo and let her talk. And then I rewrote a lot of it. lot of my book and I dedicated it to my mom. And I really, really, really would like to encourage a lot of adults to go talk to their mother, adult to adult, not try to renegotiate your childhood, but as an adult, talk to your parent as an adult and find out who about your parents' childhood from an adult perspective and get to know your parent.

Doing this made me know my mother and understand my childhood in a way that made me love and admire my mother and think of her as a hero instead of a mother that was detached or whatever. My mother was very hurt. My mother was a depression-era child who had Ricketts and Scurvy, whose mother walked five miles to the welfare office to get 50 cents to feed her kids and really had an enormous struggle who was given away when she was nine. I thought just because she was poor, but I didn't understand that she was these people's maid and housekeeper and did all of their everything, they're cooking, their cleaning, their laundry and then walked two miles to school and came home and did it all again as a little

kid. And that was her childhood. That there was no love. There was no care. There was no concern. That she was a child laborer and that that was her way out of malnutrition and starvation and being beaten and abused. And I had no understanding of the predicament of my mother. mother's childhood. And of course, you know, and my father, who had come from significant wealth, from an oil drilling family in oil city, Pennsylvania, and then when the well blew and the money went to not my grandmother because women couldn't get money, women weren't allowed to receive the money in the Depression era. It went to an 18-year-old nephew who, of course, lost. everything in five minutes. And my dad grew up in people's barns. And my uncle was in the Navy when he

was 14 or 15 years old. Now imagine a boy on a Navy boat when he's 15. And tell me what you think happens to a boy on a Navy boat when they're 15 years old. And think about what happened to my uncle, a poor 15-year-old boy on a Navy boat. Can only imagine. And I tell the story, and I tell the story about also his alcoholism and how he died, just a terrible death from his alcoholism. And you think through the system of the way that neither of my parents had parents or their siblings got to be parented and that I grew up with parents who were children when they had children. They were 16 when they got married and started having children. And they stayed together. in a very loving marriage, but they were children.

They were 16 years old, and they were together for 60 years until my dad died here in my home. But what did they know about raising kids? What did they know about anything? They weren't educated. They weren't parented. They knew nothing. And you think about the way that this country has been built, and that the country has been built, and the people who built it with their bare hands.

And the way those people are being considered now when they can't get a check during COVID and they can't get cared for during this time, the rural American. And that's what I care about. I care about the rural American. I'm currently working now with an institute to try to create programs for rural Americans.

And this is very, very important to me, this understanding, that this is cyclical. This goes back and back and back. And we have to break the chain of what happens, what happens to these families all across our country. This isn't just my story. This is this everybody's story. This is the story of this country of how we've, the welfare program and then, you know, Roosevelt and what Obama tried to do with Obamacare and how we keep crushing care for our Country. This country needs our care. Rural Americans need our care. That's the point of my book. This country needs our care. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Sharon Stone right after the break.

Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Sharon Stone. I love hearing you talk about the perspective you gain later in life because no kid can have that perspective. when it's just your mom and your dad and you're frustrated. And as you said, she's detached and you're struggling and you're just trying to survive yourself. And they're putting nickels and dimes and mason jars in the kitchen. Yeah, yeah. So try to create a future for themselves. And they're going to school at night at the kitchen table.

And my dad's trying to get his die sinkers degree. And my mother's finishing high school and got her high school diploma the same year I did. and then went to school at night to become the secretary for my dad so he could start his own die sinker shop. And then he hired the first woman die sinker. And everybody went crazy because my dad hired a woman. How could he hire a woman? And even more, how could he hire a lesbian in a small town in America? That doesn't happen. You can't hire a woman. Are you insane? And how dare you hire a lesbian. Like the whole thing was so crazy that my father would be a forward thinking man and hire a woman. Like this whole thing was just crazy that my parents would go back to school,

educate themselves, change their lives, and then do a futuristic thing like that. Yeah. Well, we're furious. You go back to that time too. That was unthinkable, as you said. It just wasn't happened. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Did you, so did you look then, Sharon, at performance and performing as some way out of the life that you saw your parents having? Or is it just some fun thing that you enjoyed doing as an escape?

Well, like I said, I was an artist. I was studying all these things. No one thought that's what I should do because I was a little kid who tested with the high IQ and was pushed through school. high IQ and was pushed through school, you know, five years old in the second grade, fourth, fifth, and sixth, pulled out of classes and in these experimental classes that Mensa, I think, brought to my school. And so we were doing those, you know, if the train leaves the station and is going this fast and has this many passengers, you know, and if you win, you get the hula hoop, you know, with all these things. And then when I started into seventh and eighth grade,

the government brought testing into my school and, you know, all the numbers. And then if you can do them backwards, and then if you can do them backwards with every third number, and then who can be the best at that, it was like all these tests. I was part of that period in the 70s where they were testing every kid with all this new kind of educational testing to see how we test children for intelligence. And you tested well. And so they nudged you along. And as you said, college at 15, I think, or at least? Yeah, 15.

Which is unbelievable. I mean, so how, I mean, where does this modeling and acting idea even come from, coming from that little town in Pennsylvania, a working class town? Is that even on the radar for you at that point? My brother got in a lot of trouble. My brother was a drug dealer. And my brother got arrested over the state. line. We lived in the corner of Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania. And we lived in the corner. It would be like

a second to go into Ohio or New York. Right. And, you know, we used to when I was in college, we'd drive to Niagara Falls for breakfast, you know, it was all that. Cleveland was really close. You know, so my brother got in trouble in New York over the state line, which is a much bigger felony than Pennsylvania or Ohio. And he got in trouble. He had cocaine and lots of it. And he got arrested by the FBI. I think it was like the day before Christmas, news cameras and everything, because he had beat a couple of former arrests. So he got arrested on television for cocaine, and he got sent to Attica. And it was a very dangerous arrest. And it had been dangerous in the year or so preceding it because he had become really wanted. And it was dangerous for my family. It was

dangerous for me. I was modeling in New York. I had, or I wasn't modeling in New York, yes, I guess. Or maybe they had already let me go because it was getting dangerous. But it was around the danger of my brother's activities, that my parents were like, you know, they didn't want me to go because I was so young and I wanted to pursue acting. And my parents really wanted me to pursue a degree in engineering because that's where the tests had said they thought

I might best land. I was more interested in the law and enacting. And I thought I might be a good trial lawyer, which ultimately ended up winning an Emmy for play. Yes, the practice. That's right. But everyone really felt like I might be safer, if you can imagine, going to New York as a teenager, to model than staying hanging around while my brother was getting in more and more trouble. And then he eventually went to prison in Attica.

Wow. So it was almost a move of protection from your family. It was a protective, yeah. It was a protective move that they let me. ago. That's incredible. So you get to, you have success in New York, you're modeling. Well, I went to New York with $50 in a suitcase. And I did not have, well, first I had big success. But at that point, the scar on my neck that I got from riding a horse under a clothesline was keyloid. And so people didn't notice it at first, but it cast a shadow under itself. And this was before digital retouching. So it was a

big deal. So when the first set of photographs came in after my initial two, three weeks of superstardom, like I would just hit the scene and was like superstar, then the pictures came back and I was super failure because it was too expensive to retouch all the neck things. And so it was either get surgery or get out. And so, so. So the agency lent me the money for the surgery, but the surgery went wrong. And it wouldn't heal. It just wouldn't heal. And so by then, now I'm living in a five-floor walk-up on East Houston Street

across from the Texaco station because it hasn't been gentrified yet. And my roommates are like thousands of cockroaches. And it's just awful because pulling myself up the stairs is pulling it. hard, just going really wrong. And they start giving me cortisone shots. And I just start getting fatter and fatter. And I'm by nature quite small. But it's really messing up my system.

And it just went on like for a year. And then they thought, well, move to Italy where fatter girls can get their picture taken. And so I moved away and tried to start there. And then I moved to Paris. and worked there. And then I finally thought, why am I doing this? I really wanted to work as an actor.

And this whole circuitous thing that's happening to me is just taking me off course and I'm getting very depressed. I need to go home to New York and I need to think about what I'm doing and then I moved to L.A. And so do you think of the first big break as 1980 with Woody Allen in Stardust?

Is that the moment where you see? said, okay, someone's noticed me. Well, they did. I was on that as an extra. Right. And then he noticed me. And then I played this one scene. And then Gordon Willis was like, you know, we think you're really good.

Would you like to stay and be in this movie some more? We can't pay you what you're making as a model, but we think you've got the movie thing. We think you have it. Do you like it on a movie set? Do you like being here? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, well, we think you have movie. We think you've got the movie thing.

Do you want to stay? And I'm like, I do. And they're like, well, stay for two, three weeks. We're going to put you in the movie some more. And I'm like, okay, I'll do that. And so that's what happened. Woody Allen saw something in you and the people. Woody and Gordon.

Gordon, the cinematographer, particularly, I think. So what were those, so the 10 years from there to total recall, which a lot of people say, okay, that's Sharon Stone's breakout. What were those years like for you as an actor? I'm just interested, because in the book, I think a lot of people look at a star as big as you are, and you've come as a fully formed superstar. You know, there's Sharon Stone and basic instinct.

You know, she's always had it. She's got it here. But, man, the road, as you describe your childhood and mom, modeling all over the world and trying to get acting jobs. It's a long road, isn't it? Basic instinct was my 18th movie. There you go. And I'd done lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of television playing like cigarette

girls and, you know, prom queens that were insane and, you know, drunk beauty queens. And, you know, I mean, I have to say I had to make them all insane or drunk or crazy. because the parts were so stupid that there was no explaining the behavior unless they were either insane or high or something. So I would invent that there was something much more maniacal about the character than the way they were written

because otherwise they just had to be stupid. So, yeah, I, you know, I could invent all these, you know, afflictions for the prom queens and beauty queens and semi-nude, you know, weirdos that they would give me to play. Was there anywhere in that run, Sharon, where you said, boy, I'm getting tired of playing these characters. I don't know if this acting thing is actually going to end up being what I thought it would be.

No, because sometimes I'd get a really fun thing. I got like the season premiere of Tom Selleck's series. And so I got to go to Hawaii for five weeks and play twin insane. people. And, you know, I'd never been to Hawaii. And they put me in an exquisite suite that opened, the whole windows opened onto the beach above this beautiful restaurant I remember called Michaels that had Eggs Benedict. And I'd never had Eggs Benedict before. And certainly not on a beach in Hawaii. So I thought, oh, my God, I can play crazy. all day long, watch this happen.

You know, so I was willing to go there. I was just, and Tom Selleck is without a doubt the nicest man ever in the acting business. There is no person nicer than Tom Selleck. And all we did was tell like kid jokes, you know, like, you know, what's green and flies over Germany, snotzies, you know. Like, we just told stupid jokes. all day long. Like, you know, why does Winnie look in the toilet?

He's looking for poo. I mean, we just told each other, like, dumb jokes and, like, laid on the beach and laughed and did, you know, that. And he was so nice and so cute and so silly that all we did was try to find the stupidest jokes that we'd ever heard to tell each other. And it was so fun and so sweet. So sweet. And it's rare that you get an opportunity.

to work with someone who's so nice. And so those kind of jobs were the salve of that experience. Right. They kept you going. Plus the ex Benedict didn't hurt either. If there's eggs, you're in, you're in.

You know, it's just rare that, like, as a young artist, someone decides to really treat you like you're special. Yeah. Yeah.

Am I right saying that total recall for you was the breakout, like, who's that moment for you in 1990? When that movie, was so big. Yes, and I came into acting class, and I said in my acting class, I got the lead in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. And one of my classmates went, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is the lead in Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. And my teacher said, not if you're in my class. Wow. Wow.

What was that experience like? Huge budget that a movie made over $100 million. You're with one of the biggest movie stars in the world at the time. What was that like for you? Well, it was very clear to me that Arnold was the biggest star. Yeah. And I had these fight sequences to do. So I studied martial arts, like three hours a day, three days a week. I worked out at this gym called Eaton's gym, which is like a serious, like, I call it,

Lunkhead gym, but like it's like there is no air conditioning. There are fans on the floor. There are weights. There are fish tanks that you look on at these old exercise bikes. They're not like a peloton. Like get on and you grind your way through it. You lay on the floor and do your work. It's like hardcore weightlifter gym.

Like you don't talk when you're in there or they throw you out. You know, and so I worked out at a gym like that. I did the martial arts. I worked out like a crazy person and then I ran on a treadmill at home. So I gained 25 pounds of muscle and worked out like a crazy person to be prepared because you can't, you know, to be an actor is it's you really have you bring the emotion, but you also have to be an athlete. You know, and particularly, I did a lot of action films. And so you have to really be an athlete to accomplish the work that I did. I mean, even in casino, you know, I was being thrown down flights of stairs and thrown

across parking lots. And you have to be physically fit and athletically prepared to manage, you know, falling down sidewalks, rolling down flights of stairs, going across parking lots and landing and not smashing your face in, you know, there's a lot to my job. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's clear. I mean, you're doing fight scenes with Arnold. You better be ready for it, you know, or anything. I mean, or a scene with Joe Pesci or De Niro and Casino, same thing. I mean, when I was working with Bob De Niro, I mean, I was, my legs were green, black, blue, and green from a lot of our fights that we had because the house was marble. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, so you mentioned and you write a lot in the book about Basic Instinct in 92, start with first with the audition.

What was, and that is available online, as you point out in the book. People can go watch your screen, your screen test. What do you remember? Did that feel like high pressure? sure to you. This is a big deal. It's a Michael Douglas movie. This could be big for me. What do you remember about that process? Well, basic instinct, I auditioned for, God, it's a long time ago. Everybody's so wrapped up in it.

But honestly, it's like a thousand years ago to me. I auditioned, I think, eight or nine months for that. Wow. Really? And they offered it to, I think, 12 other people first. before it got to me.

And I kept the script on the top of my fridge so that every time I went to the fridge, I have a second thought. I took everything fattening out of my house. I mean, I even changed to like organic brown coffee filters. I mean, I was so stringent with myself through the process, through the casting process, so that if I did have,

the opportunity to get the part, I would be completely ready. I mean, I worked out, dieted. I mean, I was drinking diluted slim fast by the time we shot the film because, you know, I was young and full and youthful looking and had a normal physique. And when you have to shoot nudity, In a movie, you can't have an ounce of fat on your body because it doesn't look good on film. It doesn't move correctly on film in a beautiful way, even though it's normal and pretty. So I had to be tremendously underweight when I made the film. And so, I mean, I just didn't eat. I did not eat food.

And I worked out like, I ran on that treadmill with a headphone while I did all my office work, everything I did. And my assistant sat at the desk next to me while I ran on the treadmill all day and just didn't eat. Well, you got the part. So all that running must have paid off. That you write really nicely in the book about the experience of becoming a movie star effectively after. that and what that was like for you and coming from where you came from, which you just laid out and what it meant to be a wealthy person or a fancy person or how you're supposed to dress and

how you're supposed to act and you're all of a sudden you're a can and you're doing all these things that felt a little foreign to. Did you feel like an outsider? I was doing all that before I got any money because, you know, I didn't get a lot of money to make basic instinct. Right. You know, Michael was already a star, so he got a lot of money. but I was a kind of nobody. So I didn't get a lot of money. So by the time I was going to the Oscars, which was before the movie came out,

no one was offering me a pretty dress to wear because I wasn't famous yet. Right. But I had to get a dress to wear, but I couldn't afford to get a dress. I didn't have the money to get limousines or protection. Like when we took basic instinct to Cannes, 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. I was in one car. And fans were fans while I was at the premiere had taken all my clothes, my contact lenses, my toothbrush, everything out of my suite. And I couldn't go back to my suite because. the fans had overtaken what was a normal hotel on the strip. And now I had to be moved somewhere, but where, and with what money, and with what security team, and how. And so my poor driver, and now the one bodyguard that I now had in this one normal sedan,

and my two girlfriends, who I was with, had to figure out. how are we going to get me out of this hotel? And I'm in my bathing suit and bathing suit cover up and a pair of sandals and my glasses. And I have to get out of the hotel into this one car and into this somewhere else we're going to hide me without a security team, without any money, without any other clothes. And now I'm super famous. And the hotel lobby is filled with hundreds of people. outside the hotel is filled with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. And so my bodyguard got the kitchen workers, the housekeeping staff, and everybody to make this big loop,

which they call a buttonhole where everybody holds each other's arms like this. And I got inside of it with my friends, and they tried to move me through the lobby. And some fan, some man, came running at the buttonhole. I went, oh my God, three o'clock screamed out as he came, and they tightened the buttonhole. And he hit the arm and fell and went like that. And his oxfords came under, caught my toenail, ripped my toenail out. Just flipped my big toenail out. And I'm like, and they're like, we can't stop.

We can't stop. And I'm just like, what? And this is my introduction to fame. And they put me in the car on the floor, you know, over that hump that's on the floor. And I'm laying over the hump. And my two friends, my one friend is laying on top of me and my other friend who looked a little like me and had blonde hair, sat in the back seat wearing my glasses trying to pretend to be me. And they're trying to drive through this crowd of people while I'm crushed on the floor and my toe is bleeding like crazy.

and I don't know what's happening to me. And that's hello, you're famous. And that's kind of what happens. Like you're going to see the movie or you're down at the pool and then people saw the movie and then you come out and now you're being assaulted and you don't have any help and you're famous. And it was like, now where do I go? Right. So how on earth does a normal person from northwest Pennsylvania, you adjust to that.

As you say, it happened in the space of a couple of hours, and now all of a sudden you are Sharon Stone from basic instinct. How do you deal with that? See, this is what happens to every single person. This is what happens to these kids who are, this is what happened to Justin Bieber, right? This is what happened to every one of these kids. And that's why he wrote the song Lonely, right?

Because suddenly, you're sorry. so lonely. Suddenly, you don't know who, where your life went. It just went, and then that's it. And that's why these kids write these songs. That's why these kids become drug addicted. That's why these kids get hurt and abused and screwed over. And because when it happened to me, I was 32. Okay. But when it normally happens, these kids are 19, 20. 22, right? And their parents get the, ooh, we have money. Oh, we're going to tell you what you're going to do. Ooh, we're going to. This is what happened to Britney Spears. Right. And I can say that during this time that I was in the massive throes of heightened fame, I got a letter from Britney Spears. Really? When she was shaving her head and panicking, please help me. Help me. I need help.

But I couldn't help her because I didn't have any help. Because my life was getting sucked away from me too. And there wasn't anyone to help anybody. There was no one helping me. There was no one helping her. I had her letter and I was like, I have no idea how to help you. I don't know how to help myself. But she was asking for help then.

She wanted help then. But how could I help her? my own life was being like and so what did she wanted you to guide her through this because they're about you count on one hand the people who've experienced it that intensely everyone was taking her life from her yeah and everyone was lying about her but no one's going to believe the star everyone took my life away from me and no one believe me either because suddenly you're the part you play or the song you sing or the way they see you on stage. You're not the kid from Pennsylvania that this just happened to because you were good

at your craft. I was very good at my craft. I was very good playing the part that I played. Excellent, in fact. So excellent, like Britney Spears, that I must be like the thing I did. I couldn't just be good at it. Like, look at me. I painted a painting. I'm good at that. Am I suddenly Picasso? I don't think so. I don't. I don't. think so. But what if, right? So am I suddenly going to have everything else taken away from me? Because I can paint a picture or write a book? No, because now I'm 62. Not anymore, baby. Not anymore. Because I've had it happen to me before. And I've had people decide, I must be crazy. I must be making only sex movies. I'm

I must be a different like this or like that, pardon my language. But it is really disturbing. And I saw it happen to me. My whole life got taken from me. I saw it happen to Britney Spears. I've seen it happen to artists after artists. Look at the artists that are dead. And the very fact that you can hang on and stay alive,

I like to say congratulations to the rest of us that are still living. Because it is a tough thing to accomplish. staying alive, staying sane, staying no thank you, and then having everyone else say, there's something wrong with you because you've said no to me. If you say no to me, I will ruin you. Well, go ahead.

You know, I've heard that before. And so has Britney Spears. And so have, you know, Merrill Monroe. row. So did so many other people. And I just, I'm at the point in my life where it's clear that because I could play basic instinct so well, doesn't mean that I'm like her. Because I can paint this picture pretty good. Doesn't mean I'm frigging Picasso either. You know? You don't get to do that to me. anymore. And frankly, I don't think it should happen to any other women either. I think it's time we knock it off. And just because I tell you about one part of my life doesn't mean that's the only part of my life that you get to run crazy with. I'm a whole person. And we're going to get to, we're going to have to sit with that. And we're going to have to get comfortable with that. You know,

I'm a whole person. And I know that's hard for people to grasp and to understand that I'm a whole actualized person and that I can play the part in basic instinct. And I can play the part in Lovelace and Alpha Dog and the muse. And that all is me, all of that. And paint the picture and write the book. And I'm afraid you're going to have to get with that and not keep pigeonholing me into this. thing that makes it easier for you.

Do you feel that still, Sharon, in some way? 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? Do you think Britney Spears is crazy and needs her father to take care of her? I do not, definitely. Well, there's your answer.

I mean, I think a big step probably toward changing that perception, and you can, you correct me if I'm wrong was casino because if they said, oh, she's sexy in that movie. Now they could not deny by watching Casino like, oh, no, wait, actually, she's a great actor, too. She can do this. 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, it's like, you know, get a brain. I don't know what else to say. Like, but did. Did casino feel like some kind of validation of that when you get the Oscar nomination and all of that, what you knew and you felt in your performances throughout your career? Did that casino feel like, there you go? People still can't get off the basic instinct thing, even though you can see any guy's penis on Netflix.

They can't give it up. You know what I mean? They still want to 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, because Paul Verhoven was a great director and because Esther Howes brought in a really good script. They don't want to deal with the fact that, you know what, it's a great movie. It's a movie that you still watch every time it turns on your TV, nanny, nanny, nah, and 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. So I know how much you watch it.

Say whatever you want to say. Pretend it's about a half of a frame of film. They're still going to pretend that this book that they're buying is about one page in my book. And I get that too. But you know what? I don't care. Buy the book. Read the book.

You'll pretend that, you know, it wasn't because I can write a frigging book. That's okay with me too. It doesn't matter to me. You're still going to be reading the whole book and you're going to still see an entire story that is going to have an effect on you. If you needed to be about one page, I got that one page for you. Maybe you hook him with that one page. But what I loved about the book is here you are from start to today.

You know, here's the whole story. Here's the back story. That's the hook, Willie. That's the hook. Every song has a hook, honey. I've taken way too much of your time, but I do want to ask you just before I let you go about where you are now. Ratchet was very well received. You talk about this sort of this second life living twice and what this second one has been like for you and that you've been reborn in many ways and you've taken on new challenges and your painting and all these things that have happened for you.

is it, I hesitate to say a silver lining, but is there a silver lining somewhere in what happened to you in September of 2001? Oh my God, yes. Are you kidding me? It's all, you know, we're here to learn our lessons. That was my lesson. That was a lesson. You know, there's a thing in Buddhism is called a Cohen. And it's when the question is the answer.

answer. And what I had to go through was my Cohen. And it was great for me. It was because I decided to accept it with integrity, it was great for me. And I grew and I grew up and I grew out and I grew with width and with depth and I got to be more. Was it fun? Did I enjoy it? Was it awesome? No, it was awful. Was it important? And did I learn a lot from it? Yes. Was it my life's big lesson? I sure hope so. I sure hope that was it. I sure hope there's not like another one like that in store for me. I really hope I really pray that I did a good job with it because I hope that was it. I hope that I didn't resist. I hope that I was humble and available to my lesson because I don't want to do it again.

And do I think that I got it right in a smacker maybe because I didn't pay attention to some smaller lessons prior? Probably. Probably. I do think now that when you don't listen, like to the slap in the head and the tap on the shoulder and the like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you get punched in the face. Yes. Yes. I think probably I wasn't a good enough listener before I got decked. And I'm certainly a better listener now. It feels like you're in a good place. Am I right? I'm in a really grateful place in a very, a place of tremendous gratitude. And if none of that had happened, I certainly wouldn't have my two other kids that I went on to adopt on my own. And having the three of them here now is my blessing and my salvation and my joy.

And, you know, to be in this frat house during COVID, it needs to be gigantic four. has been a lot of fun. And, you know, when I was a kid, I always wanted to have a house full of kids running and screaming and dogs. And this is going to probably sound stupid, but there was this movie called Please Don't Eat the Daisies. When I was a kid, it was a Disney movie that probably, I don't know if anyone ever saw it.

And there was a big dog and everybody was always running around. and they had a car and these kids. And I used to think, this is the ideal life. I just love this whole idea of kids and dogs and chaos. And I got it. And I like it. And I don't know if everybody else would like the life that I got, but I feel very blessed and happy about the life I got.

And we're happy together. and what's better than that? And as the book proves you have earned that life, you've been through it. Sharon, thank you so much for being so generous with your time. Congratulations. People are going to love this book. And happy early birthday to you tomorrow. Thank you, it's tomorrow.

Thank you, Willie. I really appreciate that. And thank you for bringing me into your home. My big thanks to Sharon for a great conversation, her new book, The Beauty of Living Twice, is out on March 30th. And my thanks to all of you, as always, for tuning in this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And of course, don't forget to tune in to Sunday

today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.