It’s been more than three decades since Sharon Stone starred opposite Michael Douglas in the steamy thriller “Basic Instinct.”
Despite being released back in 1992, her portrayal of Catherine Tramell, a crime novelist accused of brutally murdering her boyfriend, is still making headlines.
Most notably, it’s the film’s interrogation scene, in which Stone uncrosses her legs, offering a split-second flash of nudity, that remains gossip fodder nearly 35 years later.
It’s ironic given that in the years since the incendiary moment was filmed, nudity has become increasingly commonplace in both movies and television shows.
Among them? “Euphoria,” in which Stone plays Patty Lance, an executive showrunner for its third and final season.
“It’s phenomenal,” Stone raves of HBO’s Emmy-winning teen drama. “Ashley and Sam Levinson, who made this thing and developed and produced … they built these stars,” she says of its breakout cast including Zendaya, Maude Apatow, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney and Hunter Schafer, among others. The late Eric Dane also starred and makes an appearance in Season 3 in one of his final roles.
“They found talent, talent, talent, talent, talent,” Stone continues during a sit-down interview with TODAY.com. “They find nothing but talent and develop it.”
Calling the the show a “ride,” Stone raves that “Euphoria” is both “intense” and “unbelievable.”
“It’s so good. I just think it should be shown in every school in America. Adults watch it and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s not how it is.’ You know what? I raised three boys as a single mom, by myself, and I am telling you, that’s exactly what’s happening in the world,” says Stone.
It’s a world that’s been drastically altered by technology and social media since “Basic Instinct” was released in the early ’90s and is also a markedly different one from when Stone first began acting.
“(‘Basic Instinct’) was 30 years ago, right? You think about TV 30 years before that. We had ‘Dragnet’ and ‘Mannix,’ look at the arc from that to that,” explains Stone. “And people thinking that if they might have seen something, it was the most scandalous thing in the world. Not because they did see something, but because they might have seen something.”
In fact, according to Stone, when she first started in the business, female actors were required to keep their feet crossed at the ankle while on camera. Another rule? They weren’t allowed to show their armpits.
“One of the big deals that people never talk about in the interrogation scene in ‘Basic Instinct,’ is that I had to get approval in the scene because I had bare armpits and I raised my arms over my head,” she says.
“My armpits had to be approved, just like crossing my legs. My armpits. So, let’s not really discount the fact that it wasn’t just that ‘Did we see something?’ I had to get my armpits-raised-over-my-head approved.”
A lot has changed since then. Most notably, women, says Stone, who’ve banded together to help shift a male-dominated power dynamic.
“Women are not singular. We are not isolated. We are not just talking about some man. We are not only relevant because of ‘the man’ in the room. We’re relevant to each other. We are a sisterhood. We care more about each other than we care about the one man who thinks he runs the room,” she says.
“They keep telling us, ‘We’re going to take away all your rights.’ And we’re like, ‘OK, then we’ll all be together as one and then we’ll see how that goes.'”
Stone also weighs in on the current state of the world, saying she’s got a list of questions she’d like answered.
“I want to know how we are going to live through, survive, repair, recover and love each other in these ever-changing times,” she says emphatically.
“I want to understand what I can do to continue to be of service, of value, of interest and be interesting and interested during these ever-changing times. I want to understand how to let go of the thing we knew for so long that no longer exists and acknowledge our collective grieving,” Stone continues before concluding.
“I want to understand how to acknowledge your grief, my grief. And also don’t forget to acknowledge each other’s joy and figure out how to create joy in this present moment while we release all this joy into the sea of change.”
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