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Sharon Stone, what can you say?
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You re gonna be listening to her in 22 seconds, depending on how long we go.
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You wish, it ll be way longer.
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Sharon Stone.
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Did my first movie with the lovely Sharon Stone.
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She was perfectly wonderful on it.
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We didn t have a lot of scenes together, but we stayed in the same apartment complex.
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Every time I see her, I bore the shit out of her with that story.
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I thought I saw her at the Oscar at a thing, and I went hunting for her, I wanted to say hi to her.
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And she s always fun, upbeat, and very much a movie star, and sort of, kind of old school movie star.
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Just really pretty, from basic instinct on, actually from total recall, always followed what she did.
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She s very interesting to talk to.
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I mean, she mentioned Humphrey Bogart.
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You know, it was the first time we kind of dove into Humphrey Bogart, the way his suits were tailored.
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So she meanders in a lot of different directions.
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She s a painter that has shows all over the world.
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She s been an iconic figure in American cinema.
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We ll talk a lot about casino and what s the difference between acting with Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro.
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Well, you re not, if you re driving your car, you re going, boy, I m not pulling over.
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Listen to this one.
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Stick it out.
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It s great.
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She s charming, smart, and quite a delight.
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One of the few hosts that took a pee break.
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She says, am I allowed to take a pee break?
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And David said, no.
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And I said, no, no, no.
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Come on.
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And I said, you re the only host to do it, but let s do it.
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And she hosted SNL too.
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Once or twice?
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She was such a good sport.
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And we talk about the comedy that we did in 1992 with Sharon Stone.
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We would be literally arrested now.
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So she was a good sport about it.
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But that was 1992.
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You know what?
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Someone would have come out of the audience and done a citizen s cancel.
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Just hold you till the cops come to cancel you.
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It was, but she was so good in it.
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She said, well, anyway, listen to this podcast.
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It s really interesting.
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I enjoyed it.
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There she is.
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Hi.
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Long time, I haven t seen you.
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How are you?
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I know.
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Why do you look the same and I look like I belong in an old folks home?
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We are getting older, aren t we?
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It s incredible.
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Sharon thought I was Nick Nolte when she jumped on.
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That s true, I did.
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You do have a Nolte sort of from Prince of Tides, though, or from... Jesus.
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Regina.
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You need a little bit more of that shag cut into the top of your hair to be Nick Nolte.
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Did you know that Nick Nolte and Mickey Rourke are best friends?
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Well, I gotta say, they re both unbelievably nice men.
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I know both of them quite well.
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I worked with Nick, which was fantastic.
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I did a movie with Nick and Jeff Bridges.
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It was wonderful.
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And then a Sam Shepard film.
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And then Mickey, I ve known forever.
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I went to Russia with Mickey to help raise money for children s oncology ward.
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And Mickey and his best friend went out and got a Santa suit and bought presents for every kid in the ward.
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And he s just so kind.
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Mickey s such a kind man.
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And so crazy, brilliant.
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The wrestler he did, you know, a few years back.
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Kind of a next level type of acting.
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Nicolas Cage, you know, in the early days, they all wanted to be friends with Mickey.
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Yeah.
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So Nicolas Cage wanted to be friends.
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He d be like,
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I ll come over.
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And he said that Mickey Rourke would always have him go to like the store on the way over there.
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Hey, could you give me some orange juice?
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It s funny.
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He s so, so nice.
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Nick is a fabulous actor too.
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Wow.
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Nicky Nolte, yeah.
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He s amazing.
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No, Nick Cage.
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He ll make these incredible, strange movies.
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And no matter what he does, they re so fascinating.
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Pig was fabulous.
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I don t know if you saw that.
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I heard about Pig.
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Yes, I did see it.
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He doesn t believe in realism.
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I did a movie with him once, he goes, in this next take, I m going to do Daniel Day-Lewis from The Name of the Father.
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But the movie had nothing, it was a comedy, nothing to do with that.
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So he came in and he just dropped to his knees, why, why?
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He is the most eccentric, the funniest guy ever, but he s got all these cool character parts he s doing lately that are so brilliant.
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Just quirky movies.
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Yeah.
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Who was you when you were a little girl?
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I like to do Oprah stuff.
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Who were the actors or actresses that you went, holy shit, or the movies that you saw?
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I was obsessed with Humphrey Bogart.
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He was the greatest, greatest, greatest actor, and he was so cool.
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His suit jackets always fit really well.
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The back of his suit jackets fit really beautifully around his waist and his bum, tailored so beautifully.
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Like someone knew how to like really fit his clothes.
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And I thought Spencer Tracy was really so
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He had such a great way of expressing his tenderness in a very quiet way.
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He had such a quality where you really felt like you could trust him somehow.
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He had something where he let you open up to the characters he played, and I really liked that.
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Do you know what s in, my wife and I, I always go by movies you will revisit.
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And so, Guess Who s Coming to Dinner has become a thing that we see once a year now.
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Yeah.
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And Spencer Tracy, you know, his speech at the end, you know, just cut you in half about the love of Sidney Poitier and, you know.
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Sidney Poitier, by the way.
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what a human being and I had the great joy and pleasure of being friends with Sidney and he gave me a lot of advice over the years and what a good man just what a Wow, elegant, elegant man just to watch him walk.
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It was just like, oh, yeah, the great wisdom about life and a great understanding about
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life.
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And I know I got to make him laugh once.
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I did these events for Cedars-Sinai Heart Stuff, and I would do my little shtick.
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And then he stopped me and I was so nervous to be around him.
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And he s I ve seen you many times.
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He gave me a compliment.
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So I said, I used to do you.
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So all I could think of was they call me Mr. Tibbs, which was 1968 or something believable in that movie.
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It was so in the heat of the night.
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Yeah, because, you know, I had the also the privilege of working with Rod Steiger earlier in my career.
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And, you know, he was tough.
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He wasn t fooling around, man.
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And he put you through your paces on set.
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I mean, he was a tough dude.
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And, you know, I m sure he wasn t easy on Sidney either.
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Yeah, whatever chemistry they had, I think it s one of the seminal moments in film history is when, I believe, Sidney Poitier slaps some white Southern guy.
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Yeah, he slaps the sheriff.
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When the sheriff slaps him, slaps him back.
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Yeah.
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And that was like, whoa.
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Who haven t you worked with?
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I haven t worked with some of the, like, I haven t worked with Javier Bardem, who is someone I would like to work with.
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I haven t worked with a lot of these new directors, and I would really like to do that.
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I say new, they re probably not so new, but they re new since my spree in the 90s.
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There s a lot of great young people now that are really exciting.
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Who do you think, Shalif?
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I think Shia LaBeouf is actually very, very talented.
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Tremendous.
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I think he s really, really intelligent.
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And I think that his intelligence is probably a bit high for our occupation.
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And I think that people don t always understand him.
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I think the opera that he did, the Shia LaBeouf opera, was so brilliant.
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And that some of these things that he does are probably just a little over the head of some of the people that are looking at him.
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You know, I had the opportunity to sit next to him one night at an event, and he was just, he s a brilliant human being.
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And I see this with some actors that people don t understand.
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sometimes they re just super smart.
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Well, like me, but with Shia LaBeouf, I think he comes out in Transformers and people just think he s going to have sort of a cookie cutter situation career that they could predict.
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And he does something a little beyond that and beyond that every time, and people don t quite get it.
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And they re like, wait, what are you doing?
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And
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He should be allowed to do all that because it s very cool.
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Can I ask you both a question?
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What was the name of the movie where it was about his childhood and his dad was a stage dad?
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And that s such a heartbreaking movie.
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And if that is autobiographical, you could see where all his stuff comes from.
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I just saw a little clip of William Dafoe.
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talking about how all actors are scared.
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And if they re not scared, they don t give a shit.
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And frankly, I don t think that s really true.
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And I think that Shia LaBeouf is one of them that isn t scared.
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And he also isn t that he doesn t give a shit.
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I think that he grew up with so much terror that like this thing that he does now expressing the truth of his imagination is probably the most freeing
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and lacks such severe consequences that he is able to go beyond some of the things that people who haven t been through what he s been through can ascertain and can get to, you know?
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Yeah, he has that quality like you feel like he needs to do this, you know, it s medicinal.
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It s not like just a career.
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It s his vocation.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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And I think for many of us who just keep going, it s because it really is our vocation.
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Being an artist really is our vocation.
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It s not just a job, you know.
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In the beginning, I thought, oh, you re supposed to take all of these parts because, you know, came from a very blue collar family.
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And I thought, well, that s what jobs are.
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Yeah.
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You re supposed to just work.
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I didn t really understand that we were actually allowed
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to be our whole self as an artist.
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That s not something that anybody talks to you about when you start becoming an actor, that you should express yourself fully, especially for a woman.
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They re like, shut the fuck up.
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It s personal.
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It s not like switching jobs at a department store.
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It s not any complaint.
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It s a glamorous profession to the outsiders.
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But when you re in something that really sucks and you know you re going down with the ship,
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And the bullets, you re out in front of the bullets and you go to the dailies and you go, oh, this sucks.
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It s a horrible piece of shit.
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And I always knew that meant I was going to be the one selling it because all the mail cars were in an abandoned ship and she was selling this one.
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And it would be called Sharon Stone s whatever, like as if you were the director, the producer, the writer.
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Did you run into a lot of macho men in the 80s that treated women not very well?
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There s no way.
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I mean, I don t know.
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Yeah, men.
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No, I know.
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I m kidding.
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But when I when I started working, the rules were very different.
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You know, people were taking their pieces out in the makeup trailer and doing coke off the back of the makeup mirrors.
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And hookers were coming to the set and drug dealers and all of that coke.
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Yeah.
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You know, you you re old enough to remember this stuff.
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Oh, I remember I would I would hear men in a room talk about women with such contempt.
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together, it kind of shocked me because I had like a rough childhood.
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I didn t like the way my dad treated my mom and I didn t come from that place.
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But yeah, there s a lot of anger toward women.
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Yeah.
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Whoa, whoa.
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Where is this coming from?
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Yeah.
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So you obviously you went through the gauntlet and a lot of the brunt of that anger, because if you re a woman that starts to get any power at all, like, shut up, you know,
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You started producing, co-producing, production company.
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You re taking the reins of your career.
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And they re like, Sharon, you re doing really well.
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We still want you to shut up.
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Do you understand?
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Yeah, exactly.
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And I heard really recently, like as recently as a few weeks ago, a statement about me, which was nobody likes a loud mouth broad.
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Did you just think that was about you or was it about?
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It was a direct it was directly about me.
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And Jesus, you know, Harvey Weinstein gave an interview or from prison.
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Yes.
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And I get it.
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I get it.
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I really get it because I am a loud mouth broad and and I get it.
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I get I really do understand it.
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before you who tried to take the reins away from the men and who pushed back like you.
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And you of our generation was probably the first and also was in this spectacular global hit.
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which gave you so much power.
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But was, were there anyone before you that you looked to?
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Was Katherine Hepburn pretty tough in a way?
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You know, she made her own production company, which was so unheard of.
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Betty Davis made her own production company, which was really, really unheard of.
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Lucy, Lucy, who I actually met and got to put on stage a couple of times early when I was doing events.
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I got to be the wing person that got to put her on stage.
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So I met some really interesting people from that old guard and, you know, it was.
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I mean, it s it s not nice to say that these women were battle axes, it s a weird expression, but they had had all their way through.
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I mean, hard core battling it.
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And they wore that battle.
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You know, it wasn t.
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It wasn t easily won, anything that any of those women did.
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Well, you came through, which is slightly different from, I would say, there as a sex symbol, whatever you want to call it.
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So when you were exploding, you also were a sex symbol and a woman.
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It was a different lane than previous.
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There might ve been other beautiful women, but you were the first that I think played, essentially got a Golden Globe, or it could have been Academy Award nomination for Basic Instinct.
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and also being very, very beautiful young woman.
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So were you the first in that way to explode in a movie as the co-lead with Michael Douglas?
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I think no one was really ready for what happened with that movie.
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You know, it was tough to make that film.
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We had a lot, a lot of resistance, a lot of resistance in the street, a lot of resistance everywhere.
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I mean, resistance within
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There was just, it was a hard movie to get made.
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It was a hard movie to make.
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It was a hard movie to finish.
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My name wasn t even, you know, on the poster, you know.
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I was not, it was a Michael Douglas movie.
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It was Michael Douglas in basic instincts.
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And I was on the poster, but not my name, which ultimately worked out to be quite beneficial for me because people were like, who s the girl?
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You know, who s that girl?
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Geez, she s all through that movie.
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Who s that girl?
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And it helped.
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Did you audition?
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Did you have to audition a bunch?
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Who did you beat out?
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I auditioned for eight and a half months.
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And I was the 13th woman that they offered the film to.
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They didn t offer it to me right away.
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I had to wait for 13 other
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more important actresses to turn it down.
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And many, they really wanted Michelle Pfeiffer.
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They didn t want me.
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But she turned it down and they kept going back to her and she kept turning it down, thankfully.
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SPEAKER_01
And they offered it to just a ton of different people that weren t me.
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And I just kept hanging in there and I kept screen testing
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and I kept auditioning for over eight months.
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SPEAKER_02
Wow.
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It s smart.
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You didn t say, fuck this.
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Now it s getting humiliating.
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I m going to walk away.
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You just stayed, stayed, stayed.
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SPEAKER_00
No, I did that for Casino too.
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I mean, they saw every showgirl in Vegas.
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They saw tons and tons and tons of actresses.
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And by the time Casino came around, I was like, I am not going to line up with showgirls.
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and I am not going to line up with the other 3,000 actresses.
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And I finally just said, no, I m not coming in till you get down to serious casting and I m done being yanked around in the business.
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I really want this part and I m really right for it.
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SPEAKER_00
And when you get to real casting, let me know.
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Wow, I mean, it just shows you, because you d done Total Recall before Basic Instinct.
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SPEAKER_00
Sure.
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And then, you know, and then you d done many other movies.
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So yeah, just always auditioning in Hollywood.
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Wasn t Total Recall really big?
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SPEAKER_02
I mean, it can t compete with, I guess, Basic Instinct, but Total Recall, in my recollection, was huge.
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SPEAKER_00
It was big and I was famous for a few months and then it kind of... You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
That s what happened.
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It buys you six more months in the business.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
It was like, okay, you did that and then what?
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SPEAKER_00
But it didn t hold enough power to get me the part in Basic Instinct.
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SPEAKER_00
Shit.
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SPEAKER_01
Wow.
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SPEAKER_01
So then here you are in your career, Basic Instinct,
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goes crazy.
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SPEAKER_01
And then you get a call from Lorne Michaels.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I you know, I think Lorne is a wonderful person.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, you guys have much closer relationships with him, quite obviously, than I do.
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SPEAKER_00
But he personally saved my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I came to do Saturday Night Live with you guys, which I was so excited to do and scared, really scared.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I came out to do the monologue live, which is always super scary.
2
SPEAKER_00
And a bunch of people started storming the stage saying they were going to kill me during the opening monologue.
2
SPEAKER_00
The the police that are always in there during all that and the security that s always in there froze because they d never seen anything like that happen.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they sort of they froze.
2
SPEAKER_00
And Lauren started screaming, what are you guys doing watching the fucking show?
2
SPEAKER_00
And Lauren started beat.
2
SPEAKER_00
himself beating up and pulling these people back from the stage.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the stage manager looked at me and went, hold for five.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I thought he meant five minutes and he meant five seconds.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so all these people were getting beat up and handcuffed right in front of me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we went live.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was doing this live monologue while they were handcuffing and beating up people at my feet.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you think the monologue is scary to start with, try doing it while people are saying they re going to kill you and they re handcuffing them while you re doing the monologue.
2
SPEAKER_02
What were they so mad about?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, first of all, when you watch it on YouTube, are you watching the dress monologue or it s actually the one right after the melee?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s the melee.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
What were they mad about?
2
SPEAKER_00
They were mad because it was the beginning of my work as an AIDS field worker.
2
SPEAKER_00
and as an AIDS activist.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they didn t understand, nobody understood at that time what was really happening.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they didn t know if Amphar could be trusted or if we were against gay people or what was, they didn t really know.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so instead of waiting for an informative, intelligent conversation, they just decided, well, we ll just kill her.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was like, it was very intense.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I went through, you know, a couple of years of really tough times with that until we people started to really understand what we were trying to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, um,
2
SPEAKER_00
Gosh, I just, I was so not prepared.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in those days, as you remember, the audience wasn t up like it is now.
2
SPEAKER_00
You literally ran through the audience to make your changes.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so every time we were making a change and you re really physically changing your clothes while you re running through the audience, I was just terrified.
2
SPEAKER_00
I honestly, I blacked out for half of the show.
2
SPEAKER_00
I knew part, I mean, we did that skip going through the,
2
SPEAKER_00
uh airport security i m sure you remember that and uh you know it s all funny but i came to for that one i mean i came to for like two skin i came to but for most of the show i was completely blacked out with terror i didn t even know where i was
2
SPEAKER_01
First of all, I mean, as you mentioned this, I remember it, but I must ve been getting a wig on or something, but you re saying that Lorne Michaels actually waited in, how many were there, like 10 people?
2
SPEAKER_01
And they must ve been like secret agents.
2
SPEAKER_01
They had to go in very stealthy.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how many there were, or if there were three or five or something, but it wasn t a huge number of people, but it was enough that Lorne was in there physically trying to contain them himself.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he told me about it at the party.
2
SPEAKER_01
He said, there was a sucker punch.
2
SPEAKER_01
I went for an uppercut.
2
SPEAKER_01
I got a leg lock in.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that Jen Hooks had a gentleman in a headlock, and then Sharon landed the bottle lock.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, the monologue was great.
2
SPEAKER_01
I watched it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I watched it this morning.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I want to apologize publicly for the security check sketch where I played an Indian man and were convincing Sharon, her character or whatever, to take her clothes off to go through the security thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
So offensive.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s so 1992.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s from another era.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel very I, you know, I don t have as many.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that we were all committing misdemeanors because we didn t think that there was something wrong then.
2
SPEAKER_00
We didn t have this sense.
2
SPEAKER_00
I had much bigger problems than that.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_00
That was funny to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t care.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was fine being the butt of the joke.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I feel like now we re in such a weird and precious time because people have spent too much time alone.
2
SPEAKER_00
People don t know how to be funny and intimate and or any of these things with each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
And everybody s so afraid that they re putting up such barriers around everything that people can t be normal with each other anymore.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s lost all sense of reason.
2
SPEAKER_00
We need real laws so that we know what s a felony, what s a misdemeanor, and what s an offense to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you can say, I m offended.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, that s against the law.
2
SPEAKER_00
We need to know.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the fact that we don t know has a lot of people who shouldn t be making up things making them up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, as a comedian, you do self-censor yourself, or if you re sitting around with friends and you re kind of laughing, thinking of stuff, you go, oh, he can t say that, or he can t say that, or he can t do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
You just automatically get into that zone where, you know, obviously for me, when I was doing the Indian character, and I actually have an Indian cardiologist who s famous, and whenever I do events for him, he wants me to do him.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was no malice in it.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was no sense of, it was really me rhythmically trying to get laughs.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just want to say that watching it, comedy needs a straight person and you were perfect in it.
2
SPEAKER_01
You were completely sincere and you made us funny.
2
SPEAKER_01
Cause you re like, oh, come on guys, really?
2
SPEAKER_01
And then, all right, but this is the last one.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the idea that you were blacked out in that.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, she woke up for that one.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you woke up for that one.
2
SPEAKER_00
I usually woke up when people start asking me to take my clothes off.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have a tendency to wake up for that.
2
SPEAKER_02
These buzzwords, take off your blouse.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
That whole show was really fun.
2
SPEAKER_02
Pearl Jam.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_02
I remember I just started and we were looking forward to going, oh my God, Sharon Stone and Pearl Jam coming up.
2
SPEAKER_00
You imagine what a beautiful, I mean, that s a beautiful memory.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, we all loved hanging out with you, and you had a wing woman who was incredibly nice, too.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m sorry, I forget her name.
2
SPEAKER_01
Probably your best friend, but she was there all week, too.
2
SPEAKER_01
Mimi.
2
SPEAKER_01
Excuse me?
2
SPEAKER_01
Mimi.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who s incredibly nice, and the two of you were so charming and nice, and it was just fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was a fun show for me, having you out there, and I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
I thought you were great.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s really fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
I d love to do it again.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, Lauren always says, oh, you re welcome back anytime, because I think he wants to make it up to me that I come on the show and no one will try to kill me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, we ve had death squads before, but, um, Sharon was the first, um, I think that, uh, so we love Lauren.
3
SPEAKER_01
Lauren is a singularity of a human being and with a gigantic brain and a gigantic heart, but we can t not do him because he s so fun to inhabit that attitude.
3
SPEAKER_01
David, did you have something to say?
3
SPEAKER_02
I was just saying that early in my, uh,
3
SPEAKER_02
Um, days when I was 21, I did a, uh, my first movie was Sharon and she was had a part in it and she couldn t have been more stunning.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I could have been more starstruck and she wasn t even a star and she was so lovely on it.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was a skateboarder in it.
3
SPEAKER_02
And aside, two things I remember from that movie, Sharon was in my same apartment complex, where they put us up, and when she was wrapped a little earlier than me, she gave me all her stuff from her apartment and her fridge, which I took, because I blew all my per diem at the strip club.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then, this is in Toronto, and then the other thing I remember is when I was at the wrap party, I thirstily went to the wrap party,
3
SPEAKER_02
And I went and I had a headache if I went.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I went and bought their version of Tylenol, which is 222s, which are just all codeine.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like taking four Vicodin.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I started getting feeling better at the party.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then I said, I think I m going to go home.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then I said, I think I m going to sprint home.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it was about three miles.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then I was going to dig a pool.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then I was just running around Toronto all night because I didn t know why I was so wired.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I didn t put together that there
3
SPEAKER_02
They re over the counter coding, which is why I want to move back.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s a long story.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think I still have a bottle of that in my medicine cabinet.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, my God.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was so great.
3
SPEAKER_02
I couldn t believe it.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then I was like, oh, wait, I m going to be the first one to get addicted.
3
SPEAKER_02
That ll be my goal.
3
SPEAKER_02
But anyway, Sharon was lovely.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then when she came on SNL, it was very fun for me because I was just a new writer, but I thought she went up on a rocket ship and she was doing great.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she was perfectly sweet to everyone there for being that level of craziness.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like you can t even imagine that whirlwind.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then just had a real fun week with us.
3
SPEAKER_00
I went home and when I got in the airport, Mimi went to get the luggage so I could go and get in the limo.
3
SPEAKER_00
And while she was gone, these two we used there used to be a guy called the kamikaze paparazzi.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he and his friend, they dove, the limo driver got out to put the bags in the back of the car and they dove in the front of the driver s seat and started screaming like they were like warriors on crack or something and were coming through the space to the back seat, taking pictures of me while they were screaming at the top of their lungs.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was so crazy.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the driver had to pull them out and he started beating them up to get them out of the car.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we got the car and we started down the freeway and they started behind us and they kept hitting the limo with their car.
3
SPEAKER_00
They kept rear-ending us and side-swiping us, and it was so terrifying.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I got the police on the phone, and the police are like, well, stop.
3
SPEAKER_00
Stop the car, because we don t know which town from the airport to my house you re in.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, I m not going to stop the car.
3
SPEAKER_00
They keep hitting me.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re hitting me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m terrified to stop the car, because I don t know what they ll do to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, well, we don t know how to help you because you re moving.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re a moving target.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, I think you better get a helicopter because they re ramming the shit out of our car.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it used to be legal, you know.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think now about these young superstars like Taylor Swift and stuff like, how did you get from one place to the next?
3
SPEAKER_00
safely.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that there s a lot of security that s never discussed because it has to be a small army and very stealthy.
3
SPEAKER_01
It has to be 24-7.
3
SPEAKER_00
When this happened to me, the studios weren t going to pay me more money and they weren t going to pay for an army of security.
3
SPEAKER_00
I
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t make the money to pay for it myself because they weren t paying women.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was a freaking nightmare.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, helicopters in my backyard and just fucking craziness.
3
SPEAKER_00
And no one seemed to think there was a reason to give me the money to take care of myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
And yet there was a reason to keep pushing me out there.
3
SPEAKER_02
Were you dating back then or were you married?
3
SPEAKER_02
That s another thing that s hard to keep secret.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was dating, not during basic instinct, but I met my boyfriend at the time, Bob Wagner, on The Quick and the Dead, and we were together for several years, which was very helpful.
3
SPEAKER_00
Very helpful.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, we had one question.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is an actor question.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why is Michael Douglas so good at playing guilty, horny men who are succumbing to seductive women?
3
SPEAKER_01
Fatal attraction, basic instinct, and disclosure.
3
SPEAKER_01
What is the secret sauce?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because no one looks more guilty than Michael.
3
SPEAKER_01
But you two were great in the basic instinct.
3
SPEAKER_01
He is such a smart person.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think he really knows what works and what will work and what won t work.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he s a fantastic producer.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, and he s also a fantastic activist.
3
SPEAKER_00
He he really has a sense of the world and how it works and what s happening and what isn t happening.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think he picks projects that he knows how to handle and how to make them work and how to make them sell.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think he s you know, he s
3
SPEAKER_00
He said to me when I came on to do this show, he said, you got the best part.
3
SPEAKER_00
The villain is the best part, because you don t have to follow any rules at all.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can do whatever you want.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can play it the way you feel like it, and you can do anything at any time, because a villain doesn t have to be consistent or dependable in any way.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can just do anything at any time, and you don t have to explain why you re doing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s a really good hook on that.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when he plays the unlikable person, he just lets it go.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, you two were so good together in that.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s great also.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s Verhoeven, really.
3
SPEAKER_00
Verhoeven s a fantastic director.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he s not afraid of the perverse or the kinky or the strange.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s just really not afraid.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, basic instinct goes some places that are definitely at that time, or maybe even today, just interesting, psychosocial, not even sexual, but just sort of people that are damaged or whatever you want to call it.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, like when he did RoboCop and he had the robot screen turn off, it was the first time that a movie went black.
3
SPEAKER_00
To see how long an audience could sit in the theater with a black screen
3
SPEAKER_00
and have it meaningful and have the audience consume that empty space as part of their own journey.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he takes a lot of risks.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I think it might have been.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, but another one of his movies where he started using humans as a bullet shield and no one had done that before, and it was considered so out there, you know, and we look at what we see now, you know, is so nothing.
3
SPEAKER_02
We ve come a long way.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s great.
3
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
Don t underestimate the perversiveness of America.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s the big lesson.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s a lesson now, isn t it?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s nothing like a human shield.
3
SPEAKER_02
I have a question for her, Dana.
3
SPEAKER_01
It absorbs the bullets.
3
SPEAKER_01
I have a question too.
3
SPEAKER_02
You go ahead.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, the quick one is,
3
SPEAKER_02
Margot Robbie is sort of in your situation now.
3
SPEAKER_02
Would Barbie be something that you would have been interested in?
3
SPEAKER_02
Is that Up Your Alley, that kind of movie?
3
SPEAKER_00
I went to the studio to try to make Barbie in the 90s.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bingo.
3
SPEAKER_00
With another producer, a friend of mine, and I had the then, I guess he was the CEO of Mattel on our side, and I literally, we got thrown out of the studio.
3
SPEAKER_00
They were like, why would you take this American icon and want to destroy it?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, what is wrong with you?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I got a lecture and an escort to the door.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you run into them to them today and just go, guys?
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, they re not they re not there anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, but I think, you know, if they re still alive, they probably think, oh, I hate her.
3
SPEAKER_02
What kind of angle would you take on a Barbie back then?
3
SPEAKER_02
I wouldn t even think of what to do with know what to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I mean, we had it so that the opening scene would be.
4
SPEAKER_00
Barbie pulling up to Mattel in her Barbie car and then Secret Service come out and their feet are as big as the car and they escort her into Mattel and everybody just falls aside because she s the most important member of Mattel and how all the big people are chasing her around and kissing her ass because
4
SPEAKER_00
She s the queen of Mattel and about the power of being Barbie and what Barbie could do in the world because she was so powerful.
4
SPEAKER_02
But wow, well, that Barbie ahead of your time.
4
SPEAKER_02
No, they didn t think Barbie should be powerful.
4
SPEAKER_01
The men were behind the times, then keep Barbie in the dream car or whatever.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
In her Barbie dream car.
4
SPEAKER_01
Keep her quiet, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
And Ken.
4
SPEAKER_02
So, The Quick and the Dead, which is a movie I love Westerns.
4
SPEAKER_02
Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, before he was Russell Crowe, you were a producer on the movie.
4
SPEAKER_02
I know you fought for him.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then Leonardo DiCaprio as a fetus.
4
SPEAKER_02
He s like 15 or something.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s 17.
4
SPEAKER_00
He turned 16 on our movie.
4
SPEAKER_02
And didn t you insist on him or pay his salary?
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_02
I read stuff that about your relationship with those two actors, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio.
4
SPEAKER_00
I really believed in I really did believe in both of them.
4
SPEAKER_00
I felt that both of them were sort of teed up to become major stars.
4
SPEAKER_00
I thought they were both very unusually talented and in specific ways.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know,
4
SPEAKER_00
there s a pattern in filmmaking, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
And I thought that Russell was like the Richard Burton of his time, that he was, you know, that actor who could play, you know, the captain of a ship, the, you know, he had that heavy masculinity.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was sort of fading out in that period when we had
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I think there was a name for it then.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was different.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was like men were kind of, I don t know, there was a name for it where men couldn t be metrosexual.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s what it was, metrosexual.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Russell was certainly not metrosexual.
4
SPEAKER_00
Russell was very
4
SPEAKER_00
you know, old school man.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I felt there was a place for that in our industry.
4
SPEAKER_00
I felt this way about Ken Watanabe, that he was a big place for him in film.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I just I see different actors and I think, oh, you ve really got it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just met a guy named Aaron Pierre, and I feel certain that this guy, Aaron Pierre, is going to be a gigantic star.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just just gigantic.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think he s just going to explode in stardom.
4
SPEAKER_02
He s what is his type?
4
SPEAKER_02
What does he look like?
4
SPEAKER_02
Is he is a Russell Crowe or is he?
4
SPEAKER_00
He just has played Malcolm X in the upcoming limited series about Malcolm X. Oh, and he s he s a big kind of strong looking
4
SPEAKER_00
has just a beautiful elocution.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s got a certain way about him.
4
SPEAKER_00
He carries something that just, to me, screams stardom.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think he s really going to be just a huge star.
4
SPEAKER_00
Huge.
4
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_02
We will have you back on our podcast in a year.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ll follow the track.
4
SPEAKER_02
And we re gonna talk all about that guy.
4
SPEAKER_02
One thing about Russell Crowe I just wanted to say is, because I do voices, he has a next level deep voice, and a big deep voice.
4
SPEAKER_02
And one of my favorite movies, I don t know if you guys have seen it, Master and Commander that Peter Weir did with Russell Crowe playing the commander.
4
SPEAKER_02
Twice shot numbers, twice shot guns.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s really hard to do him because he s like Obama.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a tonally.
4
SPEAKER_02
But and Leonardo just obviously he s just aged into this incredible actor.
4
SPEAKER_02
And he looks so, so young and the quick and the dead.
4
SPEAKER_02
And he was a boy.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was so infested and he was so
4
SPEAKER_00
able to access his vulnerability.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the other kids that came in were really good.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, Matt Damon came in for the part and he was so good, so good.
4
SPEAKER_00
But Leo came in and he cried when his father rejected him, when Gene Hackman rejected him.
4
SPEAKER_00
Leo was the only one that cried and wanted his dad, wanted his dad to notice him and care about him.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he was trying so hard to be enough of a man that his father would pay attention to him, which was really the crux
4
SPEAKER_00
of the character and the crux of the development.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when he was going to die and couldn t get it, he just, you know, he was crying for his father s attention and affection.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was so profoundly moving and so brave for a 17 year old kid to come in on an audition and let that out.
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And I just thought,
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That kid has a lot going on and he is going a long ways because not any other person came in and we saw everybody in the town, not anybody else that came in was willing to just rip it open like that.
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And that s why I stood up for him because I thought, you know, you have a kind of guts in your vulnerability that is what makes the star.
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And that combination of
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intense courage with your own vulnerability is so rare.
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And he just has it in spades.
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I mean, that s why you see him in The Wolf of Wall Street and he just lets it rip, you know, and he s not embarrassed or ashamed or pulling his punches, you know, and that s absolutely fascinating.
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Yeah, he s a good movie star, you know?
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And you were saying Sidney Poitier earlier, I was wondering, I m sure there are, but it doesn t seem like there s as many of those old school elegant, great looking, cool movie stars like there used to be, there probably is, but I think when you grow up with a certain onesie you look up to, it feels like it s thinning a bit.
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Yeah, I think this this this kid this, he doesn t look like a kid, but he is young.
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This Aaron Pierre has that I think he has that elegance.
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And you re right, it is so rare because for some reason.
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Young people seem to have this kind of disregard and disrespect for the way they appear in public and the way they treat the press, as though the press isn t your sole liaison to the public.
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It s like, get a clue.
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If they don t want to shoot you and they don t want to support you and they don t want to believe in your films, you should probably leave town.
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I love the idea of leaving town still.
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Get out of town.
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With all our connectivity.
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Can we talk about Casino for a second?
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Because I was talking to my wife about that.
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She goes, oh my God, Sharon was so brilliant in that movie.
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God damn.
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Because I guess it s the actress meets the part, meets the director, meets De Niro, meets Pesci.
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And there was magic in that role.
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It was my dream, my whole dream.
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was to work with Robert De Niro.
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My acting teacher is like, what do you really want out of this?
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And I m like, I work opposite Robert De Niro and home my own.
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I mean, that was the whole sentence.
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That was the whole thing.
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That s really all I ever wanted.
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And I got it.
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I didn t expect I was going to get to work with Martin Scorsese, you know.
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Jesus, who does?
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And to have had this astonishing opportunity and to get to do it, I wasn t going to leave anything on the floor.
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You didn t.
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You did not.
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What s De Niro like?
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You re in a scene with him, between takes.
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Just just casual.
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I just love to know, like, does he change it a lot?
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Does he surprise you?
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What s it like?
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You re just doing a scene with De Niro.
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He s there around on set.
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He doesn t small talk.
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He doesn t hang out.
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He doesn t have anything else to talk to you about other than the work of the day.
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Nothing.
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Absolutely nothing else.
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And he might give me a suggestion.
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but he doesn t tell me how to do my job.
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He might say, you know, in the middle of that thing you re doing, could you just give me a glance here at some point?
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Or do you need something here from me?
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Or is this what you, are you wanting this?
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You know, he s just, he s very, very connected to the work
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the outcome, what you re doing.
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He s just absolutely the most dedicated, devoted.
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Watching him work, I learned more than I learned watching any other actor.
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And I got to work with like George C. Scott.
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I mean, I worked with some really cool actors, you know what I mean?
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But De Niro is,
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You know, he s just like his own thing, man.
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You know, he s not a chit chatter.
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He s just really is serious.
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And that s the reason I think he s so good.
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And what about Pesci?
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Joe Pesci really fought for me.
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You know, he fought for me to get the part.
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He believed in me, stood up for me.
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He s really good to me.
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I really appreciate him so much.
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He was really supportive of me.
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He absolutely believed in me in a way that I don t think anybody else really did.
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And, you know, we had rough scenes to shoot, you know, like, because our relationship was rough sex and dirty and secret.
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And I felt completely safe with him, although,
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You know, when he s in that character, he s scary as all, you know, he s, you know, he s all in.
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And it s good to work with someone that s all in.
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But, you know, Joey played in that film just a, you know, really, you know,
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I don t know how to explain it, but like loose, ready to go, ready to kill somebody at any second.
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And I m playing someone who s choking me in bed and I m trying to be loose with all this.
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It was intense and great intense, but you gotta belly up to the bar when you go to work with Jimmy Woods and Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro.
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There s no fucking around.
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You better be good.
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You got to hold your own.
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You better be present.
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And I think that those people often scare actresses.
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I ve watched many, many other actresses work.
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And while they re sometimes quite good, often they seem a bit defended.
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And I think that you have to really not be separate from those guys.
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You have to be willing to jump in the pool with them and know that they re not going to save you if you re grounding.
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Before we let you get on with your life, I just wanted to kind of mention your book, your autobiography, which got rave reviews.
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Do you want to talk to it a little bit?
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And then also your art.
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And right now you re in Berlin in a gallery, I believe.
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Your art has been well-received by critics.
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You ve been interviewed.
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in New York by Jerry Stass or whatever.
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So how did that happen?
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And what are you, they re big, beautiful, colorful abstracts.
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Are they an acrylic or oil or a combo?
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And do you have someone helping you bring in canvases and stretch them and gesso them?
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There s an industrial part of having a studio, and how did you work toward being able to do that or you ve done some art before but I m just curious.
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Yeah, you know I studied all this at university where, you know, if you studied art you had to do everything from jewelry making to sculpting to.
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oils, watercolors, acrylic, you had to do everything, everything, everything.
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So I know how to do all that, but there s certain aspects of it I just don t want to do anymore.
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So I get my canvases stretched for me and I get the built
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elsewhere because it s just it s too much for me at this point.
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But I do have a studio manager who is really cool named Zach and he s terrific and he helps me a lot.
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But
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Basically, I mean, painting is sort of a one-man band, and you ve got to just, it takes time.
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It takes time and dedication and devotion, and it s an on-the-job learning process.
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And the more you paint, the better you get, and the more you understand, and the more you study, the more you understand how to mix colors, and the more you understand how color works.
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I m fascinated by color, and
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The more you understand balance and story and execution and the use of all the different possible tools that you can use, it s like anything, the more you put, the better you get.
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And do you work on multiple canvases at a time?
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Yes, I do.
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Well, I work on canvas till I feel that it s at the point where I m as far as I can go.
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And sometimes I complete a canvas and sometimes I think that s underpainting and I need to just put that in the other room for now until I understand where I m going from here.
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Yeah.
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And I totally make sense.
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Right.
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Because you guys probably write like that.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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And Dana paints also.
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Well, I yeah, but I m not not like you.
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But I I was surprised how much I loved it.
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And I have no ability at all.
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I would just do doodles and little characters on yellow pads.
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Right.
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And then I saw Basquiat and I go, oh,
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Well, I ll do my version of that.
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So I do them on heavy paper, 30 by 32, and then sometimes I blow them up and they re just acrylic so I can go fast.
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I don t want to think too much.
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And I often overpaint them.
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I think overpainting is smart.
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And good, I overpaint constantly.
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I think you don t want to waste anything.
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And when you know it s not working, overpaint it or overpaint part of it, which is what I m coming to understand now is that when you do something and you think, oh, that s just awful, don t just overpaint the whole thing right away.
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Like give yourself a minute to really step back from it and find one good thing in it.
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and start overpainting, but leave the good thing.
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And before you overpaint it, make sure you turn it every single direction.
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Turn it upside down, turn it sideways, look at it from every direction, because you don t know where your inspiration is coming from.
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And I agree, I think Basquiat is just the unbelievable talent.
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And he also showed us another way to be, another way to express ourselves, another opportunity.
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You d look at it and you d go, why is it affecting me so much?
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When you go to an art museum and you re going around the corner, you see a big Basquiat.
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You can t dismiss it.
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There s something so fluid about it, so casual.
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This feeling of just being connected to the canvas.
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I don t know, it s just talent, I guess.
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But he s fun.
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Who else do you like?
5
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Well, you know, with this Rothko show that has been going on, and then if you follow the show, then you start getting your daily Rothko.
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And you, it s just you look at these colors and you think the same thing.
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Why is this having such a tremendous impact on me?
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And how did he do it?
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And why?
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And what does it mean?
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And it just, it just evokes so much.
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And, you know, I feel this way.
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I m a huge Gerard Richter fan.
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And I feel I just love these paintings.
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And
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the impact and movement of these paintings.
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And, you know, Helen Frankenthal, the color, the color aspect of what she did was so moving and interesting.
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And the way she did it was all her own.
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And I just, you know, I just, I don t know, I m a little bit of an artaholic.
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I ve spent most of my life on the road, in museums on my day off.
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And that s been,
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A fantastic education.
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Well, it s cool.
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It s a little bit like any kind of personal pursuit, like time really flies if you re really focused on a painting, whether you re a novice or great.
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It s a meditation.
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You ve been really well-received, so I m going to make a prediction about you, whether you want it or not, but there s going to be some role or live-streaming Apple show or something you re going to be in and be brilliant.
5
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Um, if you, if you feel like you want that, cause I can just tell talking to you, put a camera on this one.
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Cause you have all this energy and all this emotion.
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It s all right there.
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So that s my.
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prediction.
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You have yours.
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David, would you like to make a prediction?
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I think it was, it s wonderful talking to Sharon.
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She s so articulate and so, uh, exactly as I remember.
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And she s got such a voice that
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is very unique and, uh, well-known and, uh, voices never changed with people.
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It s always, you know, you get older and people go on their lives and it s always, there s something interesting about somebody s voice.
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It s like a fingerprint.
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I like hearing Sharon s voice.
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I like hearing all she has to say today and, uh, very cool of her to.
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to talk to us.
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Thank you for coming on, Sharon.
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Really, really enjoyed it.
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I wish you all the best.
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I was so excited that you asked me to come on.
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First, because I haven t seen either one of you in quite a while, and it s just good to see you both.
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And it s good to see you both well and good.
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And it s good to see that, you know, we re all still standing.
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You know, we devoted ourselves and agreed to do this, and
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you know, it s, it s hard to hold on.
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You have to really want it.
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It has to be everything to you to hold on.
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And, and it s, it s really nice to see that we re all still surviving together.
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So I just really appreciate that you took your time and invited me into your world.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, Sharon.
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All right, Sharon, we ll talk to you soon and thank you and have a great day.
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This has been a presentation of Odyssey.
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Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff.
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Smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss, Berman of Odyssey, Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment, and Heather Santoro.
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The show s lead producer is Greg Holtzman.