Sharon Stone on gender progression in Hollywood and her evolving career

"Women really very much want to be seen as they are," the Oscar nominee said.

March 26, 2018, 9:18 AM

It's odd to hear Sharon Stone admit she's no longer "first on everyone's list" for roles in film and TV, but the Oscar-nominated actress said she's "working my way back up the food chain."

Stone may not be some studios' first choice, but that doesn't mean she isn't willing to wait for unique projects like HBO's acclaimed "Mosaic" or "The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife" opposite another icon, Bette Midler.

"I'm holding out to get things that I think are interesting. I'm not getting offered everything great every day, but I'm getting great things sometimes," said Stone, who turned 60 earlier this month. "It’s figuring my own lane out because my lane has changed dramatically."

But something else the "Casino" star isn't afraid to do is make a suggestion to a director that would make a film more modern and relatable.

In "All I Wish," Stone stars as a woman who is pretty set in her ways, not looking for love and happy with her single life. But that wasn't the original plot.

"I was sent the script to play the mom and I thought, 'It’s so cliche that I'd have a 25-year-old daughter, who didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life and that was traumatic,'" Stone said. "Why should it be traumatic if you don’t know what to do at 25? Why should you be seeking a man to marry at 25?"

So she decided to call Susan Walter, the writer and director of the upcoming film, with a major change.

PHOTO: Sharon Stone stars in "Casino," 1995.
Sharon Stone stars in "Casino," 1995.

"I said, 'How about I play the daughter and we get someone wonderful to play the mom,'" she explained. That someone wonderful would end up being the legendary Ellen Burstyn.

Stone said being "single most of my life" made the newly scripted character that much more relatable to her and eventually the audience.

"It is hard to have people think about [films] from the female point of view because most stories are written from a male point of view," Stone said. "Not a lot of stories are told about how women actually feel about anything."

And this is starting to change with movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp, as women are empowered in Hollywood more than ever. It's also starting to change after accomplished actresses like Stone take a role originally written for a 25-year-old and make it their own.

PHOTO: Sharon Stone in a scene from "Basic Instinct," 1992.
Sharon Stone in a scene from "Basic Instinct," 1992.

"I do think that with these changes, the key to everything going on is that we are going to start seeing women as we are," she said. "That’s the whole point of everyone’s voice right now. Not just to be heard, but to be heard in every way. ... Women really very much want to be seen as they are."

Stone has seen change take place since she began acting in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"When I was first in the business there was a way we had to sit on film," she said. "We had to sit with our ankles crossed. ... We weren’t allowed to just behave as a person. There were a lot of rules about the way woken could dress, speak, record ourselves on film."

With that in mind, Stone said the current movements should just be to stop "sexual discrimination, but to stop discrimination of perceptions."

"I feel like that is also tremendously important aspect of whats happening," she said.

"All I Wish" hits theaters and is available for digital download on Friday.