Hollywood veteran Sharon Stone says she was pressured to have sex with her male co-stars in order to have better chemistry with them on-screen. Stone writes about these demands which came from white male studio executives in her upcoming book.
In her upcoming memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, which is out later this month; the Emmy and Golden Globe winner shares a story when a male producer — who she has not named — asked her to have sex with a co-star.
The 63-year-old writes, in part, that the male producer “explained to me why I should f*ck my co-star so that we could have onscreen chemistry. Why, in his day, he made love to Ava Gardner onscreen and it was so sensational! Now just the creepy thought of him in the same room with Ava Gardner gave me pause. Then I realized that she also had to put up with him and pretend that he was in any way interesting.”
Stone recalls thinking, “‘You guys insisted on this actor when he couldn’t get one whole scene out in the test…Now you think if I f*ck him, he will become a fine actor?’ Nobody’s that good in bed.”
“I felt they could have just hired a co-star with talent, someone who could deliver a scene and remember his lines… Just leave me out of it,” she writes. “I told them my only job was to act so they considered me difficult.”
Sharon Stone says she had similar experiences numerous times with other producers. They would come to her trailer to ask, “So, are you going to fuck him, or aren’t you? … You know it would go better if you did.”
“Sex, not just sexuality onscreen, has long been expected in my business,” she writes. “Many people ask me what it was like in my days of being a superstar. It was like this. Play ball or get off the field, girl,” the Oscar nominee says.
Stone shares many personal experiences in her book. She shines a light on the progress in the industry and the work that still needs to be done; since her time rising as a star in Hollywood in the ’80s and ’90s.
She writes that she was the first woman to get paid “something considered respectable — still a whole lot less than men, but more than women had been paid in the past”. And because of that, she had a reputation as having “the biggest balls in Hollywood”. This led to criticism that she “intimidated men”.
Stone says she was often alone on set with hundreds of men, which felt isolating and uncomfortable. She called it a “stark contrast to current times”; where there is a push for more female crew members on set, and more women are finally in positions of power.
“Can you imagine what it was like to be the only woman on a set — to be the only naked woman, with maybe one or two other women standing near? The costumer and the script gal?” she writes. “And now I am the intimidating one.”
Sharon Stone writes that while she is pleased to see the progress being made in Hollywood, she wants to see due process for sex crimes.
“I believe that there is a great and good court of law for this that must be revised, reviewed, revamped, reclaimed, and reconsidered to respect the sexuality of the public as a whole”. Stone continues, “I know that all of these women and men who have been harassed, been raped, had their jobs held for ransom, and been sexually tormented deserve their day in court. I know that to be true.”
“I believe in all of what is happening now,” she continues. “The law, not just the press, needs to get in gear on this. This time, this generation, the government needs to listen to us, all of us.”
