This past Friday night
Parkinson featured an interview with Sharon Stone that blew me away so big time I was left speechless for at least an hour afterwards.
As Parky introduced her at the start of the show and she swanningly decsended the studio stairs I was madly rolling my eyes and guffawing, firmly
convinced she’s a loon and madly irritated by what seemed to be a slappably arrogant act.
She greeted Parky, sat down, he started with his questions and within a few moments every single thing I’d presumed about her got zapped and was replaced with the hugest respect for her.
She spoke about Basic Instinct 2, her 48-year old age, the philosophies her family encouraged her to believe in and the stroke that nearly killed her two years ago.
This was the most humdinging of everything as the show's camerapeep knew their stuff exactly, bringing the camera right up close on her face, capturing her emotion by doing nothing and yet doing so much.
Because it was so awesome I just had to see it again and thought you’d want to too so I’ve organised the transcript. If you didn’t get to catch it I just know you’ll find it intriguing too. Here it is:
Michael: Ladies and gentlemen, Sharon Stone. (Applause) You are looking incredibly beautiful.
Sharon: Well thank you.
Michael: Not bad for an old bird! (Laughter) A lot has been made of the fact that you are forty-eight and still as glamorous as ever.
Sharon: Well thank you.
Michael: And you see in the film, well you made the statement, that the way you look in the film, the way you perform in the film, there's a kind of statement that older women can be sexy.
Sharon: Well you know I think in the times when I really loved movies the best, in the forties, those women didn't just peter out, they went on you know, those great girls. We were talking about Bette Davies and Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, those girls were glamorous and they didn't say, 'Oh it's five o'clock, I think I'll just crap out now!' (Laughter)
Michael: Well lets talk about your film, about Basic Instinct 2. I suppose given the kind of furore that surrounded the first movie the question was how do you follow that?
Sharon: Well I hope we followed it well I hope it's good and I hope it's fun. I know that when I gave a screening for family and friends, when the movie was over I went to the ladies room no-one would come with me, they were scared of me! (Laughter) I came back into the room and everyone was just staring at me with this kind of appalled look, like, 'That's not her!'
Michael: You've made it in London of course, you've shifted the scene. Why was that?
Sharon: Well we were given a series of choices of where we could make the film, for tax purposes, location purposes, what would be plausible for the story and I think we all unanimously chose London because it's so gorgeous, because there's so many talented people here and because if we worked here we would be able to use an array of talented people from all over Europe, so it was really just everyone's first choice.
Michael: What's interesting is you haven't gone for the picture postcard oldy-worldy England at all, you've shot a lot of the new London.
Sharon: Yes, because it's gorgeous, the architecture is just fabulous.
Michael: I was coming to that point actually; I mean it's a very sexy movie. Do you realise you picked the biggest phallus in Britain as David Morrissey's office?
Sharon: Oh I thought you meant you! (Laughter)
Michael: Not me! I could get that way! (Laughter) I should explain to the audience actually, who haven't seen the movie. That David Morrissey's office, he plays a psychiatrist, is in the Gherkin.
Sharon: Yes.
Michael: Yes, which is, if it's nothing, it's a rampant phallic symbol isn't it. It's wonderful.
Sharon: Yes it is.
Michael: I just wondered if that was in the thinking?
Sharon: Well I'm sure they want to think that my character Catherine Tramell just even makes the buildings... you know! (Laughter)
Michael: And also David Morrissey too, now you had a lot of say in who was cast opposite you and you chose David Morrissey.
Sharon: Yes we did, we tested five guys who were all fantastic, everyone of them was amazing but David came in the room and he was just so clever and witty, of course you now him here, he's such a super talent, the guy can do anything, he sings he dances, he plays a sixty year old, a thirty year old, anything. He's just the most diverse and interesting guy.
Michael: And you can't play a sex scene, a romantic scene with someone you don't like. Have you ever done that?
Sharon: Oh yeah.
Michael: Have you?
Sharon: I try to have a certain love for everybody, an acceptance for everybody that I work with but you don't like everybody all the time. I mean forty movies later, everybody that you go to work with you don't think, 'Gee, they're just fantastic!' You know, it's life. You think that some people are just the most talented, wonderful actors that ever walked the face of the earth and you think some people, (looks at watch) 'Yeah, it's about that time of day.' (Laughter)
Michael: And what about, I mean famously in the first Basic Instinct you appeared nude, in that film and in this film too. The difference is that you are forty-eight now, forty-eight year old women aren't supposed to take their clothes off in public, not according to Hollywood.
Sharon: Tut! Excuse me?
Michael: I didn't say that, I hasten to add, it's Hollywood's view of things!
Sharon: Well I have to say, we were talking about this this morning. I think that there are sometimes you see a movie, it's supposed to be some big free spirited movie and then the woman has the sheet taped across here (indicates the top of her chest) and she gets up from the bed and the sheet comes with her! (Laughter) I'm like, what, you know at home that isn't what happens to me, the sheet doesn't just do the thing across the room. I think that is bizarre too. It just depends on the film and what's really appropriate to the scene and I think that we have all been taught so much fear and shame about nudity and I think you can't be obsessed either way; you can't be obsessed to drag the sheet around with you and you can't be obsessed like, 'Oh my god she's nude, oh my god, she's nude!' I think we need to relax a little bit, if it's right for the scene, great and if it isn't right for the scene then keep your clothes on.
Michael: Have you always been very single-minded about your career?
Sharon: No, I think there were times in my life when I thought I was supposed to do exactly what other people told me and be a really good person, a good girl and follow the rules and try to do just what they said and I was a complete and utter failure and I think many times in our life when we try to be good we absolutely miss the possibility of being great. Because we're so busy trying to please other people's agendas that we never figure out what's right for us and once I finally got past that I was able to let go.
Michael: Was it something that happened that got you past that?
Sharon: There were many things that happened but I think the best thing that happened is that I met my teacher who was just a phenomenal person, who taught me my craft as an actor and who taught me very much about life and being true to myself and really being true to my own ethical spirit.
Michael: But when you were a child growing up, did you want to be famous? What did you want to be, did you dream? You came from a very ordinary background in Pennsylvania didn't you?
Sharon: Yes.
Michael: There was nothing special about the background at all.
Sharon: Well it was ordinary and extraordinary, in the fact that I had very, extraordinarily supportive and ethical parents.
Michael: Well that's the best out of all of course.
Sharon: Yes. And I think that that is extraordinary. And I think when you have this kind of background of people who allow you to be who you are uniquely and teach you that the best thing that you can do is tell the truth in any circumstance and that you won't get in trouble if you tell the truth and that you have to follow who you really are and be an individual, that that really is extraordinary.
Michael: Again, I mean looking at your life, you had this extraordinary thing happen to you when you had a stroke.
Sharon: Yes.
Michael: This was what, three years ago now, two years ago?
Sharon: It's been almost, four years ago now.
Michael: Four years now is it. I mean again, that in a young woman, to anybody, it's awful.
Sharon: It's very rare.
Michael: It's very rare. I mean how did you get through that, what happened?
Sharon: Well I was at home and I'd been having a very stressful time, I was in a stressful period, I was having a stressful day. I remember walking across the hall into my television room and I suddenly just felt very strange and I felt kin d of dizzy and as I started to turnaround to move towards the sofa I had this strange feeling in the side of my head, almost like I had been shot, the impact was so intense and it just hit my like this, it hit me so hard that it knocked me over and I fell over, as I was starting to try and sit down in the sofa, I fell over completely over on my side and I don't know if I lost consciousness at all or not but the next thing I remember, I was laying there and I realised that I thought I'd had a stroke and I pulled the phone towards me, to try to call someone for help and I just laid there and I didn't know what to do and I laid there throughout the night.
Michael: Did you think you were dying?
Sharon: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I really thought that I was going to die. And then by the next day I felt a little bit better. I was in an extraordinary amount of pain but I'd lost reasonable thought and behaviour but it was about a week after we had the nine-eleven event, of the planes into the twin towers, so everybody was kind of loony and loopy, so my behaviour, nobody was really noticing me and I was just feeling terrible and this went on for several days until I was just in agony and I was upstairs and I was on the floor and I called my best friend and I was just screaming in pain, I was in terrible pain and my husband walked into the room and I was trying to talk to my best friend on the phone and my best friend said, 'You have just got to take her to the hospital.' And he looked at me on the floor and realised I was just a mess and he called the hospital.
Michael: And how long did it take you to recover from that?
Sharon: Fully? I would say, to full, full where I felt pretty much ok again, it took a year.
Michael: And that would pull you up short though, make you reassess things wouldn't it? I would think.
Sharon: Yeah it really, really was unbelievable, it was a horrifying experience, yes.
Michael: A silly question maybe but has it made you more or less frightened of dying?
Sharon: Oh much less frightened of dying.
Michael: Really?
Sharon: Yes, because when I was in the hospital I had an MRI and I came out of the tube and the doctor came over and told me that I was having a brain haemorrhage and I made a couple of calls to my mum and stuff so they could come and then I had this very strange experience where I kind of took off and I had this very very intense experience and I lost consciousness for a period of time, I was transferred to another hospital. But during that time I had a very deep spiritual experience that lets me know that it's ok. I feel very close in my faith now, I feel very close to God and I feel that I got to live for a reason, for a purpose and you know I have these amazing children, I feel incredibly blessed but I don't feel afraid and I don't know if it's because I feel that I walk very close in my faith, or because I feel that I walked so close to death and felt so peaceful with it.
Michael: Puts making movies into perspective doesn't it?
Sharon: Oh it does, it really does.
Michael: Well good that you're back, good that you're fit and well again.
Sharon: Thank you.
Michael: All the success with the film, might you make Basic Instinct 3, do you think, eventually?
Sharon: Probably only if we make it in a retirement home! (Laughter)
Michael: Sharon Stone thank you very much indeed. (Applause)