Sharon Stone (Award-Winning Actress, Activist, & Painter) on Her Hollywood Journey (Part 1 of 2)

there's a little known part of Hollywood that most people are not aware of known as the audience test preview the recently released book audience ology reveals this for the first time our podcast series Don't Kill the Messenger brings this book to life taking a peak behind the curtain and now join author and entertainment research expert Kevin GS the purpose of my podcast is twofold one of course is to pull back the curtain on little known parts of film making the audience testing of movies and entertainment research the other part though is sharing conversations with my friends that I know in the industry so my listeners can learn from other elements of the business today we're going to do both of these things I have a very special treat for you today a conversation with an icon I first met Sharon Stone in the 90s through my husband she's become one of my best friends both Neil and I are the Godfathers of her children we are an integral part of each other's lives and we are the family that we have chosen for each other you know I always say there's a season a reason and a Lifetime right in friendships and we are clearly a life time I'm not going to give you her bio because her name is simply enough Sharon I love you and I welcome you to a whole other part of my life my podcast I'm thrilled I'm so glad you're here I always say there's a woman behind every man and that's Neil and I'm the other woman that's behind the both of you 100% without question you know when I Was preparing for this I'm thinking what's the angle we know so much about each other that it's odd to sit and have a conversation that is something that others don't know about you know so I'm thinking what's the end everything well when you started your business there was so much resistance when you left to start your own business we had that phase we've had many phases like when I met you through Neil when Neil was still the head of creative advertising at Sony and Neil and I were such good friends how did you meet again it was on a movie it was Gloria it wasn't it I think it was Gloria we were doing the advertising for Gloria we met and we were like insta friends we met and it was one of those things where you meet someone and it's like you've known them forever and Neil is hilarious and he is also so brilliant and that's a combination that I really love I love people who are really really funny and really really smart and I also like people who aren't full of and he doesn't take himself too seriously and he is clever and does understand the dynamic of the the business without being precious and I love that about Neil he was also one of the only supporters that movie was not getting great support within the studio if I recall at that time they didn't they change directors or something and well it was always Sydney lumat but cydney was in a period of his life where he was quite difficult he wanted to be on the 4:00 Long Island train and be done with his day and it was a hard period he was very cranky and he wanted to rehearse all these scenes that were going to be in the streets of New York on a sound stage with tape on the floor and that's a period that has really gone past and we were eating up you know Studio money with this thing that I think everyone felt was a big waste of time and then we were shooting in Harlem on Halloween day with a 9-year-old and I was in 4in heels trying to carry a 9-year-old through the streets of Harlem on Halloween which is a nightmare it was a three- ring circus of course Jenna rolands did the original and I always love Jenna Roland happens to be one of Neil and my dear friends and you did something very classy before you agreed to take the role yes I called and I asked her if she would have a meeting with me and I asked her if she was comfortable with me remaking this film because she's one of the greatest actresses that ever lived and one of the actresses that I admire more than anyone and also she too is not full of beans oh no she's not she really serious actress and she and cassavetes were really serious filmmakers and they're not about all of their feelings and all of their tender ways you have to talk to them in order to make a project happen and they're just workers so I went and I sat down with her because this was going to be a really to me I was going to work with lumad and we were going to make a serious film that didn't really exactly happen because we weren't we didn't have the hours in the day to really make it but you did say to her if you don't want me to do it I wasn't going to make it I wasn't going to make it there's no way I would disrespect her work and I did feel in the end that the project did not wholly represent their good work I was sorry that the film was not nearly as good as her version it's really important to try to respect what they did when you started and we didn't grow up as kids together but knowing what I know about you from the girl from meville Pennsylvania who was really into books essentially an introvert and very he and intellectual to go into the field you ultimately chose has always seemed so kind of counterintuitive what did it even to enter the Miss Crawford County pageant in the day back when you were 17 we were broke and Miss Crawford County was a sub pageant of the Miss America Pageant and by winning Miss Crawford County I got a partial scholarship to college and I also had an academic scholarship because I was going to college at age 15 so it really helped because my dad was a factory worker who worked swing shift an hour away from home so this was a Hard Scrabble upbringing my mom was an Avon lady right so we grew our own vegetables on our property and he shot deer and that's what we ate all winter which I hate and I ate a lot of rabbit did they clean them yes that's what we had to do and when I would come home from school yeah there was a deer gutted hanging on my swing set and it you know Thanksgiving there'd be a big turkey pinned on the clothesline and those are like probably seven feet across with their wings spread out I just want to say that your dad taught both Neil and me had to shoot guns yes he did in Pennsylvania and Neil turned out to be a damn good shot I was less successful I'm not going to lie to you but Neil was pretty damn good in fact we kept a Target in our library where we have Neil's beautiful shots and mine are somewhere off in The Ether right right but those were such special times being with I mean we grew up I learned to shoot a gun when I was five wow yeah and that's how I you know broke my clavicle from The Recoil of the shotgun my clavicle is like this from the shotgun and you learned all the safety before I was allowed to drive all the kids had yeah before we were allowed to drive we'd come down for breakfast and there'd be a handgun disassembled on our plate at breakfast and we had to clean it and reassemble it ooh that's some serious stuff right there that's right because you're driving a weapon yeah wow was the lesson wow so we had to be able to change the oil the fan belt and the tires before we were allowed to take the car out okay so I know I asked you this question but you were doing an interview with Oprah and I remember you called me the night of the interview to tell me that it went well but you told me one particular story and I remember adding to the story and it has stuck with me cuz it was so upsetting and yet informative of who you are who you became okay and the story was these little witches who were on the playground you were about 7 years old if I recall you were reading a book and you were not popular and these girls who were the popular girls came over to you at recess and one of them walked over to you the most popular and you thought she was going to ask you to join them oh I was older I was actually like in about the fifth grade so that would have been what n 10 10 yeah yeah and what did she do I had like two of my friends were my friends and I was shy really shy and there was this girl she was like the queen of all the girls you know there's the click and they're all the the Mean Girls yeah they're the pretty girls let's be honest and they're the popular girls and they're the girls you always wish would like you and they all floated over and they were smiling and laughing and I thought that they were going to talk to me and the main girl stepped up I was so like it's the moment and she slapped me across the face and they all started laughing and they walked away and I was so stunned and I went and sat against the school wall till recess was over and then I went in the bathroom and her handprint was on my face and I didn't want to go to class cuz I was so humiliated that her handprint was on my face and so I hid in the bathroom for the rest of the day because her handprint was still on my face all day long and it's kind of a thing because Hollywood is a lot like that there's a lot of the club and there's a lot of people who play with you all the time and then when you don't give the right answer you're say sitting against the schoolyard wall and then they're back in class making fun of you and you're in there with a handprint on your face and you don't know what happened and it takes a long time to recognize that this is the unhealthy social aspect of life in general when we talked that evening I remember saying something very I don't know if you remember it but I remember it really clearly cuz I felt it done to me and that was that these girls tried to slap the different out of you yes they do they do they try to slap the different out of and that to me was something so relatable and so I go back to you with the original question of why do you go into acting where you're going to subject yourself to yes praise and of course but of course ridicule and and all sorts of other lots of ridicule particularly in my case because I really am the proverbial Black Sheep I really am the proverbial Dark Horse because I know that it is the antisocial qualities that I have it is the different thing about me that makes me special MH it is oh I always said you were a character actress locked in a leading lady's body it is I mean I've always said that it is so the truth about me that's why the films like Casino or Basic Instinct or even the Muse are films that are so right for me oh no how about Alpha Dog alpha dog was such a wonderful trans how about Bobby Bobby amazing but these are these are also you got those character roles yes but so also you got to think about who the directors were that's fair right we're looking at cassavetes once again we're looking at that familial understanding of work right when we look at the Muse we're looking at Albert Brooks who is about the work he's not about anything else when we look at a casino we're looking at Martin Scorsese it's about the work when we look at Basic Instinct we're looking at Paul verhoven it's about the work when we look at people who are frivolous or superficial or ego tripping they're not going to like me and they're not going to understand me and they're going to call me names because they're going to think that my thoughts and my ideas and my questions are about them or their insecurities I don't know but they're not going to think that they're about the work it's well put I remember sitting down with someone who said I've written a part for you and I said okay and they said well you don't sound very excited and I said well I don't know what it is yet and they were just so offended right off the bat that I didn't demonstr exhilaration at the very thought and I thought well I can't get excited until I know what it is because I won't know if I'm actually going to be able to give you what you would like to have from me of course it's ridiculous because for me it's about the work not about my ego that's so thrilled that you wrote something with me in mind cuz I've seen a lot of that from top to bottom and sometimes even the lower level things might be the better things of course because it's about if we can come together and create the work I don't think I've known you to ever and I mean ever I'm going to go on a limb here say that you ever accepted a role for the money no it was always about there was something in it now it may not have come out the way you wanted it to no thought it should have but people think when I ask for more money on things because they want to say well she's just about the money I wish many of the actresses in Hollywood knew that often your request for other money was a statement of pay me what you'd pay the other guy exactly I mean come on because I will get a call that says this is aund million movie and we're going to pay this leading man who frankly nobody's ever really heard of 7 million but we want to pay you to be the leading actress at 500,000 and I'll say no I made 500,000 on basic inst think 30 years ago before you were famous and now I've done 100 films that's right so you're going to pay this unknown guy this out of $100 million budget I think instead you should probably pay us each three and a half absolutely CU I think that's fair and reasonable because if I take it all over the country it's going to be an event and if I take it to other countries it's going to be an event because people do know me and I say sadly there are actresses who we know who would be lining up to take that job and that's not helping the situation it's continuing it doesn't help across the board because what happens is we're getting Studio Executives that aren't educated in the process of film making they're educated in the process of budget making well that's terrific for you but in the end somebody in this process has to have the fortitude to understand that people have to be educated in the process of film watching because people go to the movies for many reasons but a lot of it is because they want to have a feeling with the people they're with in the movies they want to be engaged with the people that they're sitting with they don't go to be alone with the film they go to be with the person that's sitting next to them with the film yes and people that are doing the budgeting of the film have taken that piece of the experience out out of their cognition of how films should be made this is why the 440 to $60 million film isn't happening because people have forgotten that people want to go with somebody and have a film experience these 40 to0 million erotic Thrillers Thrillers romance date movies like that movie with Sydney Sweeney nobody wanted to pay attention to this movie right perfect date movie perfect everybody and Glen Powell and Glen Powell and everybody sexy combination well he's Top Gun right like I didn't even remember this kid's name I saw him at the Vanity Fair party I was like Top Gun get over here let's take a picture together right oh I saw that picture was wonderful right because he's devastatingly charismatic she is absolutely adorable and sexy and talented put those two together on a date night movie this is a winner but these Studio heads have forgotten why it's a winner Will Gluck knew he was a guest on this podcast will the director who said exactly that he said he knew by putting those two together put it inat on Friday and Saturday nights people want to go to the movies they want to hold hands they want to make out they want to see is your leg going to touch my leg are you going to drop popcorn in my lap oh oh I mean let's not forget the real reason we go to movies what movies are about well I hope young people do want to do that I'm looking at two right here I'm not sure we did because we had had nowhere else to go but in the Escape From the Planet of the Apes man my 13th birthday but in the with pizza in this social media we're going to cancel everybody if you breathe on me baloney because we've all become so fragile that we can't talk to anybody or you're going to have a nervous breakdown if someone holds your hand in the movie theater are you going to cancel them I mean come on we have to get back into an area where people are together again and movies are part of that it's the way we learn to communicate with people remember Garbo speaks that tells everything I went and saw your movies when I was pregnant and when I felt ugly and and I cried with you and I laughed with you you made me feel this way and you made me feel that way that's what movies are for and and you want to have somebody that's the conscious of that process exactly because intelligence isn't just intellectualism it's emotional intelligence and they have to meet and that's not being a diva and that's not being an icon and that's not being a pain in the ass that's being an artist at its highest form of efficiency and humanity and service to the public yeah but the way we need to serve artists is that the or organizers actually need to get organized and the studio organizers need to remember why we're making films in the first place yeah so in the beginning I want to just go back to you get the crown of Miss Crawford County you then get discovered as a model by the great eileene Ford who actually invited you to live with actually Muhammad Ali was at the Miss Pennsylvania pageant because if you won Miss Crawford County you went to Miss Pennsylvania and he saw you there yeah because it was in Hershey Pennsylvania and he was there on business no way so of course he went into the pageant CUA cuz he did cuz and Ali called my dad I never knew this he called Joe Joe never told you no Ali called my dad and he said Mr Stone I saw your daughter in the Miss Pennsylvania pageant and I want her to be in the greatest and my dad said well Mr Ali you know Joe it's how very nice of you to call but my daughter is going to go back to college my daughter's very intelligent and she's going to get her college degree she's not going to be in movies and Ali said you know Mr Stone you could hide your daughter under bushel basket but she's still going to be a movie star wow and dad said we'll see about that and then what happened then Mom saw Willam and I Ford were on the Merv Griffin show oh my God and that was when Mike got in trouble Mike your brother yes MH and because he was going to prison and just all hell was breaking loose everywhere and it was such a dangerous time early 70s yeah for everybody in our family and everything was so scary they decided that they thought finally they didn't want to let me go cuz I was so young that maybe it would be safer for me to go and that's when they decided that I could go to New York and were you 16 17 when they finally let me go I was about to turn 19 so even though you could have left I was a junior in college but you got to understand I hadn't even been on an escalator until I what I was trying to explain to our listeners earlier you were this more introverted book reading great student a farming community and like Danny Weaver my best friend who eventually produced Phil donu got his driver's license and we skipped school and went to Pittsburgh to ride the escalators when I was 16 because that was the biggest thing you could do right we went in his Volkswagen Bug to Pittsburgh to ride before after you visited Spencer's Gifts right exactly with the blue lights yes remember all and the psychic adelic stuff there oh God all right so um so wait you go and you go to Eileen Ford first well I went first to Willamina but Willamina had cancer oh and she knew that she was going to die she had already lost her hair she was wearing a beautiful AR scarf on her head she spent a long time talking to Mom we went to see eileene Eileen wasn't nice you know Willamina was really nice but Eileen was tough as Nails she said I'd like to throw you down the flight of stairs and bounce 10 pounds off your ass to start with that was my hello did she see you was doing Runway no because those girls it was like the pat Cleveland period how tall are you you're like 5'8 and a half but that wasn't tall enough wow and you were also more shapely I took over Cheryl tig's accounts because she did all the sports wear and the swimsuits so I took over all those golf tennis I was a Charlie perfume girl this is it 1920 and 21 and you're making some money yes oh yes you're making some you lived with eile though at first right I lived with one of the agents not e and then I was the colon Catalina swimsuit girl I was Coppertone oh you know get a good reaction show them a copper tone tan commercial I still remember jod Foster and I did all these cosmetic ads Coca-Cola Diet Sprite commercials and deers diamonds and tons of commercials clarol and Avon and buff puff every Beauty contract you could possibly have I had them all wow we'll be back in a moment with the great Sharon Stone get a glimpse into a secret part of Hollywood that few are aware of and that filmmakers rarely talk about in the new book Audi enology by Kevin gats each chapter is filled with neverbe revealed inside stories and interviews from famous Studio Chiefs directors producers and movie stars bringing the Art and Science of Audiology into Focus Audiology how movie goers shape the films we love from tiller press at Simon and Schuster available now we're back with my dear friend Sharon Stone Sharon when did you decide to move into because I love your first role it has to do with roller GES well I made friends with this great extras casting agent named Ricardo Berton in New York Ricardo had known Sly Stallone and had helped him get Rocky up and going wow and Ricardo was really sweet to me and very dramatic and he had called me one day because Julia Taylor casting for Woody mhm casting director and said that Woody was casting this new film called Stardust Memories and that he was going to see extras and you go immediately would he cast his extras I was in Radio Days as an extra oh I didn't know that yeah and he cast his extras he cast all his own extras and so come immediately now this is before cell phones you would call into your agency or you would call into Ricardo or you call in from a pay phone and or a pager beep beep beep you knew something exciting was going to happen I booked it or off so I didn't have money so I roller skated to everything and that was my ex so I roller skated all over New York I would give money to see you roller skating on Third Avenue clunk clunk clunk and I was like 61 in roll where did you live by the way I lived in a fifth floor walk up on Elizabeth and HST first across from there was a Texico station there like a block from cbgbs like really down like above the Italian bakery for Rayos but it was great because they looked after me Rey and his people really made sure I was safe coming and going so you go up to Woody Allen so I skated over to this it was Outdoors somewhere almost like at a bus stop and I got in this line and I had my huge modeling portfolio that I carried around with me and I went in the line a clumped up to the front of the line and the roller skates this where we had the very intricate Foley effects oh yes and you know the big wheels and I get up there I give the book and then she turns around and she hands the book behind her Julet yeah and it was Woody and he was sitting in the bus stop right cuz he's probably shooting there that day or something right something yeah and so he looks at my thing and then he talks to her and she says Woody would like you to sit down next to him go in and sit down so I go in I sit down I sit there and I don't say anything and he doesn't say anything and I sit there for a certain amount of time and nothing happens and eventually she says okay you can go I all right now over the many years I've experienced a lot of this where the men that I'm working with on Films will come in my trailer and sit down next to me say nothing do nothing hour goes by and they leave what are they just trying to gauge chemistry I never decide I say nothing I do nothing I say nothing I do nothing right yeah so you get the job then I get called you're going to be an extra dress in all white come down to this Elementary School we're using their cafeteria as the holding place I come and of course it's me so I bring a giant bag of books with me me cuz I'm I'm going to be there all day you know so I bring my books I'm sitting there reading this book and Michael piser who was his a at the time oh Michael pis great guy right comes out and he's like there's a girl who was supposed to be in the film and I forget what happened to her but she didn't come and there's a part that shoots today and Woody wants to see you for it that wasn't the original one you went for no I was just going to be an extra oh and I said okay when and he goes now he's going to come out and talk to you and I'm like okay and time goes by and he comes out and he sits down next to me and Woody's like so what are you reading I'm like I'm reading this book it's a children's book it's about how to explain Infinity to a child and he's like that's absolutely fascinating and so we're looking at this book and we're talking about Infinity and we had this like 10minute conversation about infinity and physics and then he goes okay and he leaves and then piser comes back and he goes okay it's time for you to get in hair and makeup and I went back and they put me in that tight dress and they were so nice to me the hair and makeup people it was like 30s 40s or something and they put that real gardinia in my hair and I had never even seen a real gardinia at this point in my life and it smelled so beautiful and they were so nice to me and then I went to the set and Gordon will shot everything imaginable and I was just watching them and it was unbelievable on this movie set and they had this train and they had all this stuff in a studio on a sound stage and I was just like come on this was unbelievable and I was sitting there and I was I was having the time of my life and so I was there for a few days and then someone came and talked to me and they said look they've seen the dailies they can't pay you what you're making as a model but Mr Willis and Mr Allen think that this is really where you belong on a movie set and they'd like to ask you to stay for a couple of weeks how would you feel about that and I said I feel great about it and they said they want to expand your part are you willing to do that you won't make what you're making modeling I said I'm willing to do it and thanks very much and so they upped the part and it was a wave that is sort of famous isn't it that picture that yeah and the kiss on the window the kiss on the window and then I piser went on to a Claude Louch film with Jimmy KH and he called me one morning and he's like the girl that was supposed to do this part got stung in the face with a be can you come over you're the freaking under study that keeps going on and I was like sure and I took a shower and I came over and he goes what took so long why do it take so long for you to get here and I said cuz I was in bed when you called me and I had to take a shower and he's like get with it and this is Mike yeah and I was like I'm with it are you kidding I'm with it and he's like well move it and I was like right I'm already wrong I'm I what am I doing you know and I went and then I had got in bed with Jimmy and the whole scene was me in bed with Jimmy and he flirted with me like crazy and I was like keep it to yourself pal and we just got this reper going did you get on with him like a house on fire ah because I was you know I have brothers so him like flirting and goofing around with me I'm not I'm not soft right you know I know how to roll with a bunch of guys sure and I'm not a you know Wallflower well I know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony you know what I mean yeah I do I don't meet to somebody for a misdemeanor absolutely like I have a great sense of humor and I actually enjoy the camaraderie you know so we got along like a house on fire and for his entire life he looked after me oh well that's where I want to go next listeners thank you for joining me today for part one of Sharon's interview we will continue our conversation on the next episode of Don't Kill the Messenger with the great and iconic Sharon Stone to find out when Fame really took hold for her until then I'm Kevin getts and to you our listeners I appreciate you being part of the movie making process your opinions matter