Sharon Stone: Dame Fame

Q: Do you get nervous that out of sheer arbitrariness the public can turn against you?

A: I saw it happen. I chose not to react. In this last year I became the subject of a lower caliber of press than I had before. It was hurting my friends and my family.

Q: You're talking about your engagement with Bill MacDonald?

A: Yes. I was very clear about my own activities. And I was clear about who was creating a new career by attaching themselves to my fame. I knew that what I had to do was acquiesce, because the one thing that fame does is amplify everything, and I knew that in short order the amplification of their greedy, inappropriate behavior would tell on them. So at first it was horrifying, but then I used to sit in the living room watching the TV and go, "Come on, you can do it! Talk some more! Tell more!" I knew the more they talked about how awful I was, the more it would turn back on them. And then it went away.

Q: Do you feel now that if you have a romance with any kind of profile on it, you're gonna get it?

A: I just saw this episode of "Hard Copy" about how I broke up with Bill, how I got a new boyfriend with every picture--that would be an incredible turnover in my life, since this is my 23rd picture. They showed pictures of this friend of mine from the set in Arizona, and they didn't have any pictures of us except when we were working together. And they had someone neither of us have met saying, "He's this, he's that, he drives her to work every day." Since Naomi MacDonald took my personal life into the public forum, people seem to believe that's an appropriate adventure for them.

Q: Do you feel personally better protected for the next time you have an important romance?

A: I think I'm better equipped to protect myself from the very start than I was with Bill. Before that I'd always been with Christopher [Peters, son of Jon], except for my few days with Dwight Yoakam that got blown out of proportion--particularly in the photo where I'm laughing over my shoulder at something a journalist said to me and it looks like I'm having a blissful moment with Dwight. There were no blissful moments with Dwight, but they keep running this photo over and over.

Q: You said once that at the time of Total Recall you began to think very differently about your career. What was that about?

A: Five days after I wrapped Total Recall I was in a car accident--my car was totaled when an illegal alien driving up Sunset in the wrong direction hit me head-on. It dislocated my jaw, my shoulder, my knee, broke a rib. And I'd just moved into my new house which took every penny I had, including selling my patio furniture. So I had one chair and a bed and I was in a back brace and a cervical collar for nine months. So I had some lean, difficult times. I gave some thought to people I cared about and it straightened me out. Very much like doing The Quick and the Dead brought me back to my center.

Q: The Quick and the Dead was important in that way?

A: I don't make any choices now for the public. In the first year and a half [after Basic Instinct], I made a lot of choices for the public. Where to go, how I should behave. I felt that the responsibility of being famous was to exemplify positive behavior. Which I still think. But I had stopped allowing myself room for error. And I had lost the ability to say, hey, I made a mistake, so sue me. And I re-found that by being able to walk away from my relationship with Bill, which was so public. And I felt, maybe it'll be a press event, maybe it won't. I made a mistake. If you never did, then throw a rock at me, but so what?

Q: Who was the most famous person in the town where you grew up?

A: The most famous people to me as a kid were the sports stars at the high school. They were the big cheeses. They got to cut classes and not have good grades and take up more space in the halls at school.

Q: Who were your heroes as a kid?

A: I remember loving Kennedy so much. Because my parents loved him so much and because when I watched them loving him I felt so good. When Kennedy was killed my dad was home when I got home from school, and we sat in our living room and I watched the heartbreak of the death of a loved hero.

Q: Who else did the family look up to?

A: My father was a feminist, for no apparent cultural reason.

Q: Must have been his mother.

A: I think so. Because his father, who was successful in the oil business, died, and my grandmother, who had been a wealthy society lady with three kids and a beautiful big home, suddenly had no money and had to go work for herself. She was a tough broad by the time I knew her--still with a great fashion sense. She'd tell me what horrible legs I had, and then pull up her skirt just above the calf and twist her ankle to show how beautiful hers was. Always with beautifully clad feet and these Schiaparelli suits she'd go to Pittsburgh to get. That's funny because my father's favorite performer is Cyndi Lauper. He was into women who would rave against great adversity. When I would go out to play, he'd call me aside and say, "Don't let those boys win just because they're boys. You're allowed to win. You're better at this. Go win." He was very concerned that I not go into society's agreement about gender-oriented behavior.

Q: Was your mom with him on this?

A: Yeah. The thing is, I wouldn't know how to do it anyway. It befuddles me. You know, the girlie stuff to get what they want instead of just getting it. I watched someone dissing me on TV once, saying, "Sharon gets what Sharon wants." And I thought, "Well, that's a good thing. You should be doing that too instead of whining like a baby." Women seem to be breaking down into two groups: women who are proud to reach for their goals, and women who carry a banner of victimization as a career. It's so bizarre to me.

Q: Well, you're just not too risk-averse.

A: I think risks are terribly exciting. I'd rather lose than be timid. After all, we're just the amalgamation of the experiences we've had. If you don't take risks, eventually, you're nothing.

Q: You've talked about the public persona Sharon Stone that you create separately from yourself. Are you comfortable with that now?

A: Well, it pretty much has its own life now. It doesn't include me anymore. It's as if she lives in another house. I don't know her.

Q: You don't watch over her?

A: Not really anymore. I can't. She's become public domain. I do what I do. We never know what's going to happen. It would be pointless to concern myself with it.

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Virginia Campbell is one of the executive editors of Movieline.

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