When news broke last month that “Basic Instinct” was being rebooted by Amazon MGM Studios’ United Artists and the original movie’s screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, it was unclear whether or not Sharon Stone would return to her iconic role of Catherine Tramell. Don’t count on it. In a new interview with “Today,” Stone said “good fucking luck” to the reboot.
“If it goes the way the one I was in went, then I would just say I do not know why you would do it,” Stone said, referring to the first time she returned as Catherine in 2006’s “Basic Instinct 2,” a box office flop that was universally panned by film critics. “Go ahead. Good fucking luck!”
When “Today” host Craig Melvin marveled at Stone’s candor, the Oscar nominee said she no longer cares what anybody thinks of her and added: “I’m at that stage in my life where I already retired once. And I already died a couple times. I’m like, ‘What are you going to do? Kill me again? Go ahead.’”
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, 1992’s “Basic Instinct” is an erotic thriller that stars Michael Douglas as a detective investigating the murder of a rock star and Stone as the seductive writer who is his prime suspect. The film was a box office sensation with $352.9 million worldwide, making it the year’s fourth highest-grossing movie. Stone recently revealed that Douglas originally did not want to screen test with her after they had a fight.
“Michael Douglas did not want to put his bare ass out on the screen with an unknown,” Stone told Business Insider. “And I understood that. He wouldn’t even test with me. But that was also for a different reason; we had an argument prior to that. This was at Cannes. A bunch of us were all sitting, and he was talking about someone and their kids. I really, really knew this person he was talking about. So I said something and he responded to me, saying, ‘What the fuck do you know?’ Clearly, it triggered him. So he screams this at me across a whole group of people. And I’m not the person who goes, ‘Oh, excuse me, superstar.’ I pushed back my chair and said to him, ‘Let’s step outside.’ That’s how we first met. … I don’t think he wanted me to be his co-star.”
The tension created by their first encounter ended up proving beneficial to their casting, she explained: “It worked great, because I was not rattled if he yelled at me. That was interesting for the character, because Michael has a temper, and I didn’t care. That worked very well in our dynamic. Eventually, we became the greatest of friends, to this day. I admire him tremendously.”
Watch Stone’s full interview on “Today” in the video below.
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From Variety US