Sharon Stone: The Unbelievable Brightness of Being

Sharon Stone left the spotlight, encountered white light and now sees life in a new light altogether. Here she talks about her return to the screen and the strange changes she's been through in the last few years - everything from miraculous healing and communicating with the beyond to restarting her career and ending her marriage.

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Sharon Stone is walking among racks of clothing, as many as 200 different outfits from name designers, trying to decide how she wants to reveal herself on the cover of this magazine. There are those slinky, see-through dresses of Elie Saab, an elegant strapless dress by Monique Lhuillier, a hip Matthew Williamson aquamarine corduroy pantsuit, an oversized black cashmere sweater, a tank top, an army fatigue jacket. Then, for the next six hours, she goes into the mode of a movie star playing a model. Sharon Stone doesn't wear these clothes, she uses them as props. She hides behind them, opens herself up with them, laughs, pouts, burns her eyes into the camera's lens. And after a full day posing, she's still got plenty of energy. She may have suffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage two years ago, but it doesn't show on this day. Her five-year marriage to San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein is on the rocks, but her health is much improved. The challenges of raising her three-year-old adopted son Roan obviously agree with her--she looks ten years younger than her 45 years. A lot has happened to Sharon Stone since we last spoke with her in September of '99, so when we move from the shoot to a cafe, there's plenty to catch up on.

Lawrence Grobel: Tell me about Cold Creek Manor. Isn't this story about you and Dennis Quaid going to live on a farm and then being threatened by its previous owner, played by Stephen Dorff, who is just out of prison?

Sharon Stone: Right, we bought his house in foreclosure, and he comes and asks for a job to help us fix up the house with no hard feelings. And then he goes berserk. My character is a mom with two kids who's a business woman from New York and thinks she's pretty tough stuff, but is totally out of her element. Her New York lippiness and her Botox and nail polish and black outfits don't carry any weight.

Q: How was Dennis Quaid as your husband?

A: Dennis and I just go together. It's like they should do The Thin Man series again for us. It just felt like that William Powell/Myrna Loy kind of thing. He bobs, I weave.

Q: Anything like working with James Woods?

A: No, Jimmy's and my chemistry is different. He's so intense and smart, it's like two thoroughbreds running down the track. Dennis is like a real old-fashioned gentleman, elegant, thoughtful. He gets the girl in me.

Q: You also made a pretty serious film, A Different Loyalty, about the English spy Kim Philby.

A: Right--one of the most notorious double agents of all time, during the Cold War. I play his wife. It's a romantic story that starts on the day he defects to Russia. Rupert Everett is brilliant. It's fantastic to work with an actor who knows how to wear a fedora and understands the Hitchcock technique or the way Bertolucci might look at a scene or what the Lubitsch touch was. And he genuinely understands the meaning of treason. Because we were at war [with Iraq] when we made that movie, I really started to think about the possibility of expressing myself as an artist through my work instead of just flapping around my opinions.

Q: Why exclude your opinions?

A: Part of what I learned from taking time off is that people can really live without my opinion.

Q: Sure they can, but you know you have a lot to say. You always have.

A: What I have to say is that I've always been a spiritual person. The one thing that has remained very consistent in my life during this time off is my faith. It's clear to me that God has a plan and a purpose for me. I walk in the joy and the ease of that.

Q: Are you relaxed with the fact that the script you liked for Basic Instinct 2 may never make it to the screen?

A: We're still in litigation on that.

Q: Did you have a pay-or-play signed contract with them?

A: Yeah, I did.

Q: They owe you $15 million?

A: It's $14 million plus interest.

Q: Was it because they couldn't find a suitable male lead?

A: I'm not at liberty to discuss it. But I don't really believe there were any major problems.

Q: Is it now a dead issue, or might there be a revival?

A: I don't think it's dead. It's a wonderful script, but it's owned by a studio. They can keep it and make it under a different name.

Q: In September 2001, you were rushed to the hospital and treated for a brain hemorrhage. What happened?

A: It was almost as if I was shot. I had two unbelievably painful shots in the left side of my head that went across the back of my head and physically knocked me over onto the couch. I called Phil and said, "I think I've had a stroke." Phil didn't think so, because I'm a person who also thinks I've had a brain tumor for years. But I knew something was terribly wrong. Then I got a terrible headache. I didn't go to the hospital for three days. I was delirious. This was the week after September 11, so the whole country was out of its mind, and they thought I was just crazed, too. I was saying things to people; it's a wonder they didn't put me in an asylum. Phil called my doctor, who told him to take my blood pressure. It was just off the map.

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