BACK TO BASICS
About to turn 60, Sharon Stone is in a chatty mood, telling us about her new series, her three sons and her leading men
WHEN Sharon Stone presented at this year’s Golden Globes, it was an announcement that the “Basic Instinct” star — whose uncrossing of her legs during a San Francisco police interrogation on-screen made American men hit the pause button on their remotes 25 years ago — was back. Wearing a sleek, black, floor-length fitted dress with sheer, geometric cutouts by a daring Brazilian designer, Vitor Zerbinato, and her shorn blond hair swept back off her face, Stone dazzled the crowd.
“His was the first dress I tried on. It fit like a dream. The netting, the sheer part of it, was the right color,” she says.
Not bad for an actress turning 60 in March, but especially remarkable considering that, in 2001, Stone suffered a stroke and subsequent cerebral hemorrhage that lasted nine days and left her temporarily unable to read, among other difficulties.
“Me and Cher. We’re cockroaches,” she tells The Post.
Stone has flown to New York from her comfy LA home, once owned by Montgomery Clift, to promote her new HBO series, “Mosaic,” which premieres on Monday. Directed by Steven Soderbergh (“The Knick”), it’s a six-part tale of romantic deception and foul play. Stone stars as successful children’s book author Olivia Lake, whose trophy home in Utah ski country puts her in the crosshairs of a very insistent con man (Frederick Weller).
Complicating matters are Lake’s unrequited feelings for an aspiring artist (Garrett Hedlund) she regrets offering to mentor. It’s a complex character that allows Stone, an Oscar nominee for the Martin Scorsese film “Casino,” a chance to show off her range, which has sometimes been overshadowed by her bombshell credentials.
“I think she’s a great character and he’s a great director,” says Stone, who calls Lake “imaginative,” with “the ability to make something happen. People gravitate toward that.
“In the case of Garrett’s character, he wants to be a better
artist and admires Olivia as an artist. With Fred’s character, she has the ability to stay with him, while a part of her really did understand there was a bit of a con man to him. I think she also understood the broken part of him. That’s [what] makes him love her.”
In person, Stone gives off a patrician air, with her steel-blue eyes and aquiline profile. But once she warms up, she becomes extremely candid, especially when it comes to discussing some of her leading men.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, with whom she tangled in “Total Recall,” “taught me how to do press,” she says. Of her “Casino” costar Robert De Niro, she says, “That was my dream: to work with Bob. And I can say that I was not disappointed for a second.”
Sylvester Stallone, her leading man in “The Specialist,” is “hilarious. And complicated. And I think he got really tired of being underestimated.”
She extravagantly praises her “Basic Instinct” co-star Michael Douglas as “one of the great people who understood humanitarian causes and philanthropic causes before anyone else. He stood up for mental health, he stood up for things long before anyone else did. I so respect and admire his courage . . . And he’s brilliant. He’s hilarious. And he’s tough and hardworking. And he said to me, ‘The villain is the best part. Have the best time.’”
Mention her “Sphere” co-star Dustin Hoffman, and Stone’s superlatives desert her. “No comment,” she says.
One of her favorite things to talk about is her three adopted sons, Roan, 17; Laird, 12; and Quinn, 11. When they watch TV together, they tune in to “Young Sheldon” (“adorable,” she says), “The Good Doctor” and “The Blacklist.” Mostly, these boys are jocks, and Stone found ways for them to burn off all their energy.
“I put them in karate — it’s called Karate Kids — when they were really little,” she says. “They were kind of dangerous. They’d get thrown out two or three times a class. It was good discipline. And instead of timeouts I gave them meditations. It helped them to become very centered. They’re always doing what their sport is at school, whether it’s basketball or soccer . . . They’re superactive athletically and I think that’s really good.”
Now that Stone is feeling strong enough to work again, she has signed on for a few films. In “Sunny,” from Norwegian director Eva Sørhaug, “I’m going to play a heroin dealer,” she says. “It’s an American production, but we’re going to shoot in Toronto. It’s very tough. It’s in that Scorsese vein.”
She’s also looking forward to a comedy co-starring Bette Midler and a man Stone will not name. “I play a grifter who comes in and just takes over their lives,” she says, laughing.
At the height of her fame, Stone appeared on hundreds of magazine covers, which she displayed in a suite of offices that she ultimately let go of when she was recovering from her stroke. “They’re in giant Tupperware containers,” she says. “I have a lot of the majors. All the Vogues and the Harper’s Bazaars and the Vanity Fairs and the Elles and the Peoples.”
That part of her career may be in storage, but Stone has not forgotten how to dress the part of a movie star.
“I work with a wonderful young stylist named Lindsey Dupuis. She came into my life and my sister Kelly Stone’s life through our charity, Planet Hope, for homeless and abused women,” she says.
“I like to look at designers who are not just your basic Dior, Prada, Gucci thing. I have had other people bring me trendy clothes and just insist that I try them out. I’m not much of a trender in fashion. I like classic fashion or fashion that’s a modern take on a classic.”