Sharon Stone said on the latest episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast” that producer Robert Evans advised her to have sex with co-star Billy Baldwin in order to save their film, “Sliver.” The 1993 thriller from director Phillip Noyce starred Stone as a book editor who moves into an exclusive New York City apartment building and discovers its residents harbor dark secrets. Evans allegedly wanted Stone and Baldwin to have better “chemistry on screen” because it would “save the movie.”
“He is running around his office in sunglasses explaining to me that he slept with Ava Gardner and I should sleep with Billy Baldwin, because if I slept with Billy Baldwin, Billy Baldwin’s performance would get better,” Stone remembered about one meeting with Evans. “And we needed Billy to get better in the movie because that was the problem. If I could sleep with Billy then we’d have chemistry on screen, and if I would just have sex with him then that would save the movie.”
“The real problem in the movie was me, because I was so uptight, and so not like a real actress who could just fuck him and get things back on track,” Stone continued about Evans’ alleged viewpoint. “The real problem was I was such a tight ass.”
Variety has reached out to Billy Baldwin’s representative for comment. The actor posted on X (formerly Twitter) a reaction to Stone’s podcast appearance and wrote: “Not sure why Sharon Stone keep talking about me all these years later? Does she still have a crush on me or is she still hurt after all these years because I shunned her advances?…I have so much dirt on her it would make her head spin but I’ve kept quiet.”
Stone was coming off the blockbuster success of “Basic Instinct” at the time and remembered: “I didn’t have to fuck Michael Douglas. Michael could come to work and know how to hit those marks, and do that line, and rehearse and show up. Now all of a sudden I’m in the ‘I have to fuck people’”‘ business.”
Evans died in 2019 at 89 years old. “Sliver” was a decent box office success with $116 million at the worldwide box office. Evans made a name for himself during the New Hollywood era as the head of Paramount Pictures from 1967 to 1974. He was a producer on such iconic films as “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), “Love Story” (1970) and “The Godfather” (1972).
Stone first wrote about the “Sliver” incident in her 2021 memoir, “The Beauty of Living Twice,” although she did not name Evans at the time.
“Now you think if I fuck him, he will become a fine actor? Nobody’s that good in bed,” Stone wrote in the book. “I felt they could have just hired a costar with talent, someone who could deliver a scene and remember his lines. I also felt they could fuck him themselves and leave me out of it. It was my job to act and I said so. This was not a popular response. I was considered difficult.”
Last year on Kelly Ripa’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast, Stone revealed she was sexually harassed by a former executive at Sony who allegedly exposed his penis to her when she went to his office for a general meeting in the 1980s.
“I went to his office and it was, you know, back in the eighties, so the couch was basically on the floor, you know?” Stone told Ripa. “It was those very low giant couches and my knees were around my neck and of course, I’m so tall anyway, so I look like all legs sitting there akimbo on the couch, and he is pacing around the office and he’s doing the exact same thing.”
Stone said the Sony boss told her: “Oh, it’s true what they say about you and you’re the most gorgeous. We haven’t seen anyone like you in decades. Everybody’s talking about you and look at you. You’re the most articulate. You’re so smart and beautiful and that hair.”
“Then he came walking right up in front of me and he said, ‘But first … ‘ and he took his penis right out in my face,” Stone added. “Of course I was very young and what I do when I’m nervous, because I’m basically a very bubbly person, I started laughing. I started laughing and crying at the same time and I couldn’t stop because I became hysterical. I couldn’t stop, so he didn’t know what to do. So, of course, he put it away and he went through this door behind his desk, which I thought was that he left, so I didn’t know what to do. I was just sitting there hysterical and eventually his secretary came and led me out, right? This was not the last of many weird experiences like this in my career.”
Stone said on the “The Louis Theroux Podcast” that she’s often had to deal with abusive men in power, including “pig” Harvey Weinstein.
“He was certainly comfortable with throwing me across the room when he was angry with me because I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do,” Stone said, adding she was happy that Weinstein is now in jail as a convicted rapist.
Listen to the full interview with Stone on the “The Louis Theroux Podcast” here.
