Speaker 1: We are back at the Sunset Tower Hotel on a glorious, sunny,
Speaker 1: yet very cool and crisp day in Los Angeles. We're
Speaker 1: about to have lunch with one of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: people in Hollywood. And I don't just mean physically, because
Speaker 1: she's gorgeous, but also inside. Sharon Stone, Oscar nominated actress,
Speaker 1: a Golden Globe winner, the star of Casino, basic instinct.
Speaker 1: It's super fun, it's super show. We actually eat, so
Speaker 1: I hope you're hungry. I am good. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to see you. Thank you me too. But what I
Speaker 1: love about Sharon, what inspires me about Sharon, it's her
Speaker 1: commitment to our community, my community, the LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 1: She has been an advocate for raising awareness with HIV AIDS.
Speaker 1: She has been the face and the fundraiser for am FAR,
Speaker 1: the American Federation for AIDS Research is a big deal,
Speaker 1: and she's stood in the fourth of making sure women
Speaker 1: and men get paid the same. She's just a rock
Speaker 1: star and we're doing We're doing fries, nice and crispy,
Speaker 1: leaning in. You're leaning in, So pull up and relax
Speaker 1: and grab your rose and get ready. Because she also
Speaker 1: is super cool and a fun, outspoken person. High Sharon Stone,
Speaker 1: you were here on table for two and we're having
Speaker 1: lunch together. This is a dream and have lunch with
Speaker 1: you anytime, would you? Yes? Yes, I think we should
Speaker 1: just talk. N Why are we not? This is like
Speaker 1: the thing with La, like we should just have lunches
Speaker 1: and chill out. Yes, you are so much to me,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you a little story. So the
Speaker 1: first time I saw you, you don't know, but it
Speaker 1: was nineteen ninety two. It was brunch my fame. Who's
Speaker 1: on Third? Remember Who's on Third? That restaurant? Joanne? Yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you were sitting there with a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at you and being like, she's
Speaker 1: so beautiful, she's amazing, and what you did. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to sort of begin our conversation today because this
Speaker 1: is all about just a connection. And what I believe
Speaker 1: is the beauty of a meal is the romance of
Speaker 1: the meal. You know, I was young. People forget that.
Speaker 1: They forget that, they forget that. It's like people don't
Speaker 1: ask each other for dates anymore, and they want to
Speaker 1: text and hook up. Yeah, it's like they don't romance.
Speaker 1: They don't seduce. They don't. It's not interesting. Frankly, it isn't.
Speaker 1: It's everything we had growing up. Yeah, it was so.
Speaker 1: It was titillating. It was like you didn't know there
Speaker 1: was poetry. It was poetry, right, A beautiful word to you. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean at that time you were hitting, you were becoming,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about who ran off with my name
Speaker 1: and identity, But what you were also doing, which led
Speaker 1: to was you are a truth teller. I am so.
Speaker 1: I am not out here looking to get people, as
Speaker 1: I'm a very big Sheryl Lead Ralph fan. Like I've
Speaker 1: known Cheryl Sheryl. I've known Chryl since we were kids
Speaker 1: in waiting rooms trying out for the same jobs in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: And she's the most warm, loving, generous kind. You know.
Speaker 1: The first time I met her, she had a bag
Speaker 1: of liquorice wheels and I was sitting next to her
Speaker 1: right sharing her liquorice wheels. And let's order some lunch.
Speaker 1: You have to eat, you boy, you have a face
Speaker 1: to paint. To look at that face and stuff. No,
Speaker 1: you have no face to paint. Um, bam, bam, you
Speaker 1: know anything. This is lunch, babe. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have the Tower Burger because it's so anza. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: do you have any gluten free thing you can stick
Speaker 1: it on like a breath, let us wrap. I'll do
Speaker 1: the gluten free bread toasted, well toasted. I like the
Speaker 1: burgger medium. I like those onions you saute them, right,
Speaker 1: I like that? And do you want cheddar or cheese
Speaker 1: greer we're doing We're doing fries nice and nice and crispy.
Speaker 1: Leaning in, you're leaning in and you know I do
Speaker 1: my my classic, my chop salad with chicken. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: digging it, Okay. I like I'll have sparkling sparkling water
Speaker 1: and maybe I'll have an iced coffee. You're going on
Speaker 1: right now? Say again, just just I'll have milk on
Speaker 1: the sign. I know, I am. I've had two already.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like Jack Jo, I'm sitting here with so well.
Speaker 1: I was really leaning into your sort of amazing commitment
Speaker 1: to am far into raising the awareness, to the amount
Speaker 1: of money and to your commitment to HIV AIDS and
Speaker 1: what you've done as a human. It's breast cancer home
Speaker 1: listeners like always, I mean, it was that always a
Speaker 1: part of it was a part of my upbringing. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a big part of my upbringing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I came from wealth, Nope, but I
Speaker 1: in my universe, we weren't poor. It's hard to explain
Speaker 1: that when you'd say, like my dad made fourteen grand
Speaker 1: a year, but we weren't poor. So I grew up
Speaker 1: in a very small rural community where, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we were like ninety people my school. Right, kids drove
Speaker 1: their tractors to school in the morning after they finished
Speaker 1: their farm tours. Right. So we had two acres, which
Speaker 1: is two two and a half acres, which is a
Speaker 1: big parcel of land when it has next to it
Speaker 1: a ravine with its own stream, where we would walk
Speaker 1: down the edge of the ravine and you know, get
Speaker 1: the ice in the winter and put it in a
Speaker 1: bucket and have fun making ice cream in the basement
Speaker 1: with that with the crank thing. And my dad built
Speaker 1: a treehouse on the side of the ravine with a
Speaker 1: back door that had a rope with knots and we
Speaker 1: could jump out and swing across the ravine. And he
Speaker 1: put bunk beds in the treehouse. And you know, when
Speaker 1: lightning stuck struck that tree, he brought it down with
Speaker 1: a pulley and made it into a playhouse. From my
Speaker 1: sister and Marianne, you know what I mean, very idyllic
Speaker 1: kind of childhood. But we had neighbors, you know, and
Speaker 1: neighbored by neighbors, I mean like a mile away who
Speaker 1: had eight kids and were much poorer than we were.
Speaker 1: So we provided their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and it
Speaker 1: was like a secret like that, we drove with the
Speaker 1: lights out in the car and put it on their
Speaker 1: doorstep and put their presence and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and it was really great. And when my parents went
Speaker 1: to somebody's house for dinner, they left early, and of
Speaker 1: course my mother per usual, had a wet wash cloth
Speaker 1: up in a plastic bag in her bag, and they
Speaker 1: would stop in a field and my dad would walk
Speaker 1: out into the field with a big newspapers and he
Speaker 1: would cut a gigantic bundle of wild flowers and bundle
Speaker 1: them with binders twine and put them in the back
Speaker 1: of the car, and then my mom would wash his
Speaker 1: hands into with the washcloth in her thing and they
Speaker 1: would wrap it with you know. That's what they would
Speaker 1: take for dinner, was this gigantic bundle of wild flowers.
Speaker 1: That was a romance of My parents were wildly in
Speaker 1: love with each other's beautiful I mean, they fell in love.
Speaker 1: She got pregnant at sixteen, he was seventeen. They both
Speaker 1: had no parents. You know, my dad came from an
Speaker 1: extremely wealthy oil family, and the oil well blew when
Speaker 1: he was little, when he was four and killed everybody.
Speaker 1: And then they were suddenly went from great wealth to destitution,
Speaker 1: right you said, or his nephew or somebody took over
Speaker 1: the business. And his nephew, who was eighteen, Yeah, because women,
Speaker 1: even though my grandmother's money was in this, women didn't
Speaker 1: get the money. And this is why my dad became
Speaker 1: such a diehard feminist, because the eighteen year old nephew
Speaker 1: got all the money, and of course blew it at
Speaker 1: the track sous so a couple of years and everybody
Speaker 1: was completely broke. And you know, my dad just could
Speaker 1: not fathom that his mother, who was my Grandmaalela, who
Speaker 1: was tough as nails. I mean, this is a woman
Speaker 1: who walked her property in a Chapparelli suit with her
Speaker 1: German shepherd Rex in his studded collar, in her black
Speaker 1: jack and her other hand. You know, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: getting her due because she was certainly capable and tough
Speaker 1: enough to handle it. Yeah, reading about your childhood was
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing because I to lose everything, right, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll lose everything, and you what you have to constantly
Speaker 1: remember is you don't lose everything, right. You'll lose stuff, right, stuff, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the crocodiles will give it to you, and the
Speaker 1: crocodiles will take it away. And the great thing is,
Speaker 1: as long as the crocodiles don't get you, you're You're
Speaker 1: a guy. So now you're like this movie star. And
Speaker 1: now you're also because it's in your DNA, you're leaning in,
Speaker 1: you're giving back, You're you're separating, You're not so because
Speaker 1: at that time, Oh, that's the point of fame, I think, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: is it's you've got this big purple dinosaur hanging onto
Speaker 1: you everywhere you go. If that dinosaur isn't working for
Speaker 1: you and for the people, yeah, it's gonna eat you.
Speaker 1: What was you're leaning into? Hiv aids? Well, I was
Speaker 1: in can and I got asked to fill in for
Speaker 1: a night for Elizabeth Taylor, and it was an incredibly
Speaker 1: moving experience. I mean, mind blowing because while I had
Speaker 1: been in the modeling industry, which has been very good
Speaker 1: to me, very good to me when I was nineteen
Speaker 1: in New York, and which I can say is the
Speaker 1: business where I have really learned the most. I have
Speaker 1: learned more about myself and others in that business than
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world. It's taken me around the world,
Speaker 1: It's introduced me to more people, and there's more loyalty
Speaker 1: and family and we have to get down to work
Speaker 1: in that business than in any other business I've ever
Speaker 1: worked in. But not all of these businesses are kind back.
Speaker 1: But in my business when the modeling business, we look
Speaker 1: out for each other and we don't want the business
Speaker 1: to just go by the wayside, and we want to
Speaker 1: look out for each other. At least I do, and
Speaker 1: I can say I have tremendous respect for people like
Speaker 1: Anna Wintour and these photographers that have carried endless pounds
Speaker 1: of cameras on their backs for their whole lives. And
Speaker 1: like I do in the movie business, when I see
Speaker 1: people dragging cable and the rain is coming down and
Speaker 1: then I'm not on set, I would be inclined to
Speaker 1: drag some cable. Anna sat with me at lunch. And
Speaker 1: she's an incredible woman. She has your passion and your
Speaker 1: romance for her work, and so generous, yeah, and so elegant.
Speaker 1: And believe me, I didn't understand her when I was
Speaker 1: a young person. She's a very shy, ye shy woman. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So you're the modeling and leaning into the HIV aids. Well,
Speaker 1: when they asked me to come back, they after I
Speaker 1: did the first one, and they said would I do
Speaker 1: three more years? And because I recognized that Elizabeth was
Speaker 1: winding down and her ability to continue to do it,
Speaker 1: and so I said sure, I would do three more years.
Speaker 1: And I said, um, gorgeous, thank you. That's the way
Speaker 1: that you enjoy Thank you so much. Well, of course
Speaker 1: I said sure, most for ours, right Okay, So I
Speaker 1: said sure I would do three more years. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a problem solver. You are you are a problem
Speaker 1: I'm a person that gets that stuff off my desk.
Speaker 1: I'm a person and that you know, if something needs
Speaker 1: to get done, I do it today. I'm a person that, like,
Speaker 1: if there's an issue, I'm not the person that like
Speaker 1: likes to talk around it. If someone's doing something that's
Speaker 1: just bullshit. I'm like the person that calls bullshit. I'm
Speaker 1: you are a truth teller. I really am. And I
Speaker 1: know it concerns people. Yeah, of course it really concerned that. No,
Speaker 1: they don't. And frankly, I don't always like it. I
Speaker 1: don't like that I'm not, you know more suave people
Speaker 1: are lauded for diplomacy, but I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of time wasted with people not talking about what's really
Speaker 1: actually going on. You know. My dad always used to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I like give it to me with the
Speaker 1: bark on right, and people think that it's cruel a
Speaker 1: lot when you just say it the way that it is.
Speaker 1: I I feel like, if I really respect you, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell it like it is. Yeah, And if I
Speaker 1: don't respect you, I don't really care what you think
Speaker 1: or what you if you want to know or anything,
Speaker 1: because it's not worth my time to get into it
Speaker 1: with you because you're not going to get it. And
Speaker 1: why bother. I mean, it's digging because we're gonna and
Speaker 1: that's not it, you know. And I think that one
Speaker 1: of the things that's consistent with what you can see
Speaker 1: with your life and your career is your ability to
Speaker 1: tell the truth and say this is no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: this is not the way this is going to go down.
Speaker 1: Like right, I see it as it is, and I
Speaker 1: think that that is so refreshing you like that. I mean, come, um,
Speaker 1: which I love I love about I really admire that, Sharon,
Speaker 1: about you. And I've seen it from the distance that
Speaker 1: you know, I find it so interesting how like it.
Speaker 1: I see that it's gotten you in trouble like of course,
Speaker 1: because people don't want because they want people to fit
Speaker 1: in their their zones, you know, like their their buckets.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden you have you. But
Speaker 1: have you come with all the smarts, his brain, his body,
Speaker 1: this beauty that's threatening? I think, well truth right, no, right,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to my lunch with Sharon Stone on table
Speaker 1: for two with burger in hand and some crispy fries.
Speaker 1: Sharon told me about a wardrobe emergency that took place
Speaker 1: right before a pretty major award show. I mean, you
Speaker 1: tell a story which I thought was interesting. You get
Speaker 1: to can your bag is lost. No one, all these
Speaker 1: actresses are around with, you know, clothes on racks, and
Speaker 1: no one wants to give you shit because you're a threat.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, like, can you tell me
Speaker 1: about that. I'm so interesting because I think that's that's
Speaker 1: a thing that you've been able to sort of beautifully
Speaker 1: navigate in your life. When I went to can the
Speaker 1: first time and yeah, bags didn't come. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: also know, navigating people who want to push backron you
Speaker 1: and I didn't. And I didn't have any money, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't buy new clothes, so I had to keep
Speaker 1: figuring out how to make what I had on in
Speaker 1: just sixteen different outfits. You. But it's like when I
Speaker 1: first got invited to the Oscars, right before Basic Instinct
Speaker 1: had come out. Movie hadn't come out, so no one
Speaker 1: would lend me a dress. And then it came out
Speaker 1: like a few days right before the Oscars or something,
Speaker 1: and I was going to present, but no one would
Speaker 1: give me a dress. It was unbelievable because I didn't
Speaker 1: have any money to buy anything. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, all these people in their forty thousand
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars dresses. And I went and bought
Speaker 1: it Betsy Johnson jumpsuit because that was it, a polyester jumpsuit.
Speaker 1: That was the best I could do. And I'm doing
Speaker 1: my own hair and makeup right, And I was just
Speaker 1: like wow, like this is awful, Like how am I
Speaker 1: going to do this? Right? But then I got there
Speaker 1: and I was like in the fourth or fifth row back,
Speaker 1: which was really good. Yeah, And I was on the
Speaker 1: aisle and I was seated right behind Anthony Hopkin, and
Speaker 1: when I walked by, he put his hands together and
Speaker 1: put them over his head like champion and held them
Speaker 1: up to me when I passed him, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, right, he saw my movie, right, and
Speaker 1: he's giving me that right thing, the champion, Like yes, right.
Speaker 1: And I told my dad and my dad was like, kid,
Speaker 1: you could look good in the burlaps, that's right at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. And I was like, oh right.
Speaker 1: And so after that, I thought, you know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I could wear a T shirt to the Oscars and
Speaker 1: so I did. Right. Well, I mean two things. One
Speaker 1: is yeah, that's you know, your strength, your power of
Speaker 1: mind and beauty and you and you so you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: you did not go, you went. You threw it on.
Speaker 1: Hopkins is saying, yes, the world's about to see you
Speaker 1: in a major way. What did it feel like and
Speaker 1: how did that journey, the lack of effing generosity of
Speaker 1: people when you're sitting in a room you got, you
Speaker 1: got yourself in that room, and now you have the
Speaker 1: lack of generosity, Like, but you didn't use Joe's not
Speaker 1: to leave the room. You're like, I'm here, and that's
Speaker 1: what to me is Well, it was hard because when
Speaker 1: I got I got nominated for a Golden Globe for
Speaker 1: that part. And when I went to the Golden Globes
Speaker 1: and they called my name, a bunch of people in
Speaker 1: the room laughed. It was horrible. It was horrible. It
Speaker 1: was horrible. Oh my god, it was horrible. I was
Speaker 1: so humiliated. I was so humiliated. And I was like,
Speaker 1: does anybody have any idea how hard it was to
Speaker 1: play that part? How gut wrenching and it's frightening, and
Speaker 1: how much work it was to play this part and
Speaker 1: kind of try to carry this complaint ex movie that
Speaker 1: was really breaking all boundaries and everybody was protesting against
Speaker 1: and the pressure and I auditioned for it for nine months,
Speaker 1: which I can't go over. They offered it to thirteen
Speaker 1: other people and now you're laughing at me. I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, I just wanted to crawl
Speaker 1: into a hole, you know, yeah, no, of course you did.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I lost custody of my child
Speaker 1: when the judge asked my child, my tiny, little tiny boy,
Speaker 1: do you know your mother makes sex movies? Like this
Speaker 1: kind of abuse by this system, this kind of abuse
Speaker 1: that I was considered what kind of parent I was?
Speaker 1: Because I made that movie. People are walking around with
Speaker 1: no clothes on at all on regular TV now and
Speaker 1: you saw maybe like maybe like sixteenth of a second
Speaker 1: of possible nudity of me right right, right and now.
Speaker 1: And I was custody. I was custody of my child.
Speaker 1: How did you survive that? Are you kidding? I ended
Speaker 1: up in the Mayo clinic with extra heartbeats in my
Speaker 1: upper and lower chamber of my heart. I did not
Speaker 1: know that when you say break your heart, yea, it
Speaker 1: broke my heart. It broke your heart. Literally, that broke
Speaker 1: right the whole thing. Yes, upper and lower chambers, it
Speaker 1: broke my heart. I went in to get a mammogram
Speaker 1: and they're like, something's wrong. We need you to do
Speaker 1: a treadmill test. And I'm like what. All the doctors
Speaker 1: came running in, They're like, whoa that's crazy, Sharon. And
Speaker 1: if you look, if you look at that moment, would
Speaker 1: that happened today? We have a whole different right now
Speaker 1: we're put through the Ringer'd be illegal. You were playing
Speaker 1: a part like what you said was when an audience
Speaker 1: comes to see a movie versus like one critic comments
Speaker 1: to see a movie like you know, we come. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know the guy that played Jeffrey Dalmer. No one
Speaker 1: thinks that he's a people who eats people? Right? Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? As he said, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a very hard part to play. It was
Speaker 1: very hard to watch. I hope we got something from it, right,
Speaker 1: Its eaters exactly. It doesn't turn him into a serial
Speaker 1: killer who eats people or make him an antisocial person.
Speaker 1: It makes a very complex person who took an incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult part which probably made him ill to play. Sure,
Speaker 1: it is brutal to play these characters. Oh yeah, And
Speaker 1: this is why I don't play them anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: want to. And it's one thing for the audience not
Speaker 1: to understand that piece. If you're an actor, what you
Speaker 1: have to go through. But it's a whole another story
Speaker 1: when you're your peers and you're the people in the
Speaker 1: business are not understanding that, and like you're losing custody
Speaker 1: and you have the legal system. I mean you're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I mean you know this is my job,
Speaker 1: Like this is oh I hate to do and none
Speaker 1: of you know. The fact that you went through it
Speaker 1: is absolutely and literally it sort of ended my dating
Speaker 1: world because men were afraid of you. And I also
Speaker 1: think that men didn't want to data woman that other
Speaker 1: men thought of like that right, and that's also a
Speaker 1: failure of the male. Yeah reality, sure, that's your own shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah really, yeah, I can't wade through that situation. Then
Speaker 1: you go on and you go on to what is
Speaker 1: like one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: which is of course in Casino, and here you are.
Speaker 1: Now I was so blessed. Come on, you're working like
Speaker 1: you're working with de Niro, You're working with Frans actorking
Speaker 1: with Peshi in the business, the greatest director of all times. Yes,
Speaker 1: and there you are, that beautiful face, that incredible performance,
Speaker 1: that whole thing, that whole transformation from like when you
Speaker 1: exerts the drugs and it goes dark and everything. First
Speaker 1: of all, I love that movie. I love that movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I love those guys. I love that
Speaker 1: Nick Poleggi script. Yeah, Nick Poggi, he's amazing. So tell
Speaker 1: me about that tray. So you go from ninety two
Speaker 1: to ninety five and then you end up back in
Speaker 1: the room where they laughed at you. You win a glow,
Speaker 1: You're nominated for an Oscar. How does that feel? It
Speaker 1: was super surprised. I mean, they told me we can
Speaker 1: run you for supporting actress, you'll win the Oscar. You
Speaker 1: can't win for a leading lady. That they're never gonna
Speaker 1: let you get a leading lady Oscar. They're never gonna
Speaker 1: let you get because of the size of the part,
Speaker 1: because it was you, because it was me and I.
Speaker 1: But I am the leading lady in the film, right,
Speaker 1: So I want to run for leading Lady. And they said,
Speaker 1: but you won't win, and I said, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'm not in it to win it. That's not the
Speaker 1: point here. The point is the actual work that I
Speaker 1: did right. And I did the work. You did the
Speaker 1: leading lady work for five months with Robert de Niro
Speaker 1: and Joe Pesci and James Woods. Right, I did the
Speaker 1: work right. So I'm going to be in the category
Speaker 1: for the work that I did, right, I'm not in
Speaker 1: it so that you'll say, oh, okay, right, okay, Sar,
Speaker 1: if you could have it, you can have the statue.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm in the lane that I drove in
Speaker 1: perfectly and thanks. So I didn't expect to get the
Speaker 1: oscar because people don't think of me as an actress,
Speaker 1: you know. They don't think of me as a person
Speaker 1: who loves her craft, you know what I mean. Because
Speaker 1: I don't walk around saying that. I don't walk around
Speaker 1: saying like I'm a dramatic actress. I don't walk around
Speaker 1: having discussions on TV about my dramatic acting. Right. I
Speaker 1: don't talk about my art for right, because I don't
Speaker 1: think of it like that at all. To me. I know, Greta,
Speaker 1: Greta Garbo is looking at me like a literally, which
Speaker 1: is more. I used to have dinner with her and
Speaker 1: not with her. This is so wonderful. She lived like
Speaker 1: three blocks from me in New York when I was
Speaker 1: a young girl. She used to walk around New York
Speaker 1: her big hat and her big coat and her goloshes
Speaker 1: and me too, and we would go to this restaurant
Speaker 1: that was between our houses and sit alone at tables,
Speaker 1: facing each other, really, and we had dinner in this
Speaker 1: same restaurant, facing each other dozens of times. You're blowing
Speaker 1: me away. And I never spoke to her, and she
Speaker 1: never spoke to me. But alone in this restaurant, I
Speaker 1: sat with Greta Garbo. Wow, and that's the universe again, right,
Speaker 1: And she's looking at me like you're trying to explain this.
Speaker 1: I know, Greta Garbo. I feel like Grega Garbo right now.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to explain how the wind meets the trees.
Speaker 1: You're like, what I do. And this is why I
Speaker 1: love playing people that already lived, because I feel like
Speaker 1: I opened my soul and let them talk through me.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not a dramatic actress. I am a
Speaker 1: spiritual conduit. And when I have the extraordinary pleasure and
Speaker 1: honor of receiving a script that is actually intended for me,
Speaker 1: I know it when I get it, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I knew it when I got the Casino script.
Speaker 1: They didn't know it when I got the Casino script,
Speaker 1: and they were seeing so many other people really, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, I'm going to wait till they're
Speaker 1: done with that. Yeah, I love that. I love your
Speaker 1: ability to take a step back because I also feel
Speaker 1: like one of the big things in life is timing
Speaker 1: when you were seeing and to say, like, I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to play Phillis Stiller, and I know that, like I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here with you, right, I just know it. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Like there are people I'm supposed to play. It's going
Speaker 1: to happen or they're going to miss it. Right. I
Speaker 1: was great friends with Phillis. I went to her house,
Speaker 1: I had dinner with her multitudes of time. She taught
Speaker 1: me her laugh. You know, I know I was supposed
Speaker 1: to play her. She didn't even get famous at all
Speaker 1: until she was in her forties. I'm supposed to play Phyllis.
Speaker 1: I love, Like, like literature, I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: picture of it, like so I could post it and
Speaker 1: show people like you're trying to explain, yes, she really is,
Speaker 1: and that you have all those moments. It was just
Speaker 1: so wonderful. I would sit in this table that was
Speaker 1: to the like the left front, and she would sit
Speaker 1: on the back right looking forward, and I would sit
Speaker 1: in the left front looking back, and I used to
Speaker 1: just think This is so great My Dinners with Garbo.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Table for two. As I mentioned at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the show, one of the amazing and
Speaker 1: endearing things about Sharon Stone is that she is so outspoken.
Speaker 1: Sharon talks very candidly about the harring events at the
Speaker 1: heart of her book, The Beauty of Living Twice. So
Speaker 1: in your memoir, you know, you're very honest about when
Speaker 1: you were in your early forties and you had the
Speaker 1: brain emerge and like that whole experience. It's so rivening.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you read this book and one of The
Speaker 1: Beauty of Living Twice available on amazone in any Star
Speaker 1: exactly good fun. The fact that you share that you
Speaker 1: crossed over and you saw people you love made me
Speaker 1: feel so at peace. Oh you should feel at peace
Speaker 1: and even though you got the kick in the chest
Speaker 1: to come back. Yeah, so I'd like to know about
Speaker 1: that and your grandmother coming saying don't move your yeah,
Speaker 1: this is These are like things because you and then
Speaker 1: your strength to say what are you doing here as
Speaker 1: you're being wheeled in, don't do that? This is I
Speaker 1: need to know more about this operation before you do it, Like,
Speaker 1: tell me about those things. That. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: when this happened to me, I felt very disenfranchised. I
Speaker 1: was not getting the help that I needed. So I
Speaker 1: didn't get to the hospital for three days of this
Speaker 1: brain blead home. I was home, Yeah, and I was
Speaker 1: calling and trying and asking and begging and bleeding and
Speaker 1: wanting to get to the hospital, but couldn't get there. Eventually,
Speaker 1: when I got to the hospital and I had the
Speaker 1: first MRI and they discovered the brain blead and they
Speaker 1: realized how long it had been going on, I was
Speaker 1: in really bad shape. Yeah, that's where I had the
Speaker 1: initial what I call like the white out, you know,
Speaker 1: where I was dying and coming back. They then immediately
Speaker 1: transferred me to a hospital that had a neurological I
Speaker 1: see you, and a neurological I see you is just
Speaker 1: a wheel, a circle around a nurse's station. It's not
Speaker 1: they're not rooms, and there's just ae drape separating each person.
Speaker 1: And it's an incredibly traumatic environment for many reasons, one
Speaker 1: of which is the neurological pain is unbelievably painful. First
Speaker 1: of all, you don't even know where it is because
Speaker 1: it's all over the place, and it's inside and outside
Speaker 1: of your body. So when it was happening, I was
Speaker 1: actually holding outside my head. I was holding above my
Speaker 1: head like I was holding yes in the crown chakra
Speaker 1: above my head. I was holding this space outside my
Speaker 1: head and holding onto it like it was sitting on
Speaker 1: top of my head screaming. I think I was holding
Speaker 1: my beingness, which was literally outside my body. And so
Speaker 1: after a few days of this screaming because they had
Speaker 1: missed it when they went in, well, they went in
Speaker 1: it through my phemeral artery and scanned and missed my
Speaker 1: why this was happening to me. So I'd been laying
Speaker 1: on one side, which was less painful, so the blood
Speaker 1: had pulled on the opposite side of my head, so
Speaker 1: they didn't know what was going on. And that's really
Speaker 1: heavy when everybody screaming and you're all fighting for your
Speaker 1: life or all of our beds are on scales and
Speaker 1: it's your body mass that they're measuring, right, So I
Speaker 1: lost eighteen percent of my body mass in the nine
Speaker 1: days I was in there. And you can only have
Speaker 1: like a guest at a time, and so my friends,
Speaker 1: my family are there. I had like my really my
Speaker 1: ride or die, best friend Donna Shavo. She slept in
Speaker 1: an alcove of a window in the hospital the entire week.
Speaker 1: You know, my mother sat outside the room. It was unreal,
Speaker 1: and I didn't meet and I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: and for some reason, they weren't putting me on nutrition. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm like about to ask you you're not you don't
Speaker 1: have an IVY with I'm satly yeah right, but like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. And my dad became
Speaker 1: so desperate and so he really, my dad, God rest,
Speaker 1: it is amazing. So he said, would you have a milkshake, honey?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, Dad. He went to the store,
Speaker 1: he bought the milkshake, the ice cream, he bought ice,
Speaker 1: he bought milk. He went home, he made me a milkshake.
Speaker 1: He put it in a mason jar, packed it in ice,
Speaker 1: brought it to the hospital and fed it to me. Wow, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: says everything right, Yeah right, I think because you know,
Speaker 1: my dad got a stop at Joe Cancer after that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I always said, you know that my dad, I know,
Speaker 1: said the prayer that I say for my children, which
Speaker 1: is give it to me. Yeah, give it to me.
Speaker 1: But any parent wants of course you say give it
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that my dad
Speaker 1: got sick because he said, give it to me, let
Speaker 1: her live, give it to me. Yeah. Wow. Sure. And
Speaker 1: I just think that that's what we do as barons.
Speaker 1: We say, give me the drama, give me what it is,
Speaker 1: let me garriott, let me help them, yeah, take me,
Speaker 1: take me. Yeah. But you were able to, I mean,
Speaker 1: between the stories of your mom and your dad and
Speaker 1: your dad doing that the strength the survivor, and you
Speaker 1: to be also to have the voice, because so many
Speaker 1: of us don't have the voice, the courage to say no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this. I don't understand this.
Speaker 1: This is power. You've been surrounded by so much power
Speaker 1: in your life. You emanate that so profoundly. I feel
Speaker 1: it's a hell of a survival story. It really it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know. It wasn't like a snappy comeback. No.
Speaker 1: You know. I had to learn to walk. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had to learn to talk because I came out of
Speaker 1: it with a really bad stutter. I lost my depth
Speaker 1: perception right well, everything hearing blew out in my right ear.
Speaker 1: I mean I was walking on the tops of my
Speaker 1: feet when I left that husband. Yeah, it's amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: the narrative of your life that takes you from Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: and like you said, a poor but not a poor
Speaker 1: family because of everybody else, and then where you land
Speaker 1: because Middle America, my friend is poor. Yes, it's poor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so's the painting that you're doing now? Is that an express? Like?
Speaker 1: How did that? Because you didn't go to university that
Speaker 1: you could have gone. I didn't go to university. Was
Speaker 1: university and I finished and got my bachelor's degree because
Speaker 1: I was out here and Hillary Clinton came to talk
Speaker 1: to a bunch of us and she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys have so much power that you don't even realize.
Speaker 1: You can do anything you want to do. You're an artist,
Speaker 1: but you can go outside your art form. You can
Speaker 1: write a song, you can do this, you can do that.
Speaker 1: Because you have more power than you're using. You can
Speaker 1: do whatever you want. And I started. Really, I was
Speaker 1: sitting on the floor because so many of us came,
Speaker 1: there weren't places to sit. So I was sitting very
Speaker 1: near her, and I was thinking about what she was saying,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know what, And so I wrote
Speaker 1: a song for Katrina and I wrote the title track
Speaker 1: song for Come Together Now to Come Together Now Katrina album.
Speaker 1: I wrote the lyrics WHOA, and I started getting people together.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we're going to write an album for katrain them,
Speaker 1: and everybody's like, you can't do that, and you can't
Speaker 1: get the artists and these artists are all under contract
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, and you can't do it. And man,
Speaker 1: let me tell you the resistance I got. And I
Speaker 1: never really got the credit for writing the lyrics because
Speaker 1: you have to really give up everything in order to
Speaker 1: get anything done. But I didn't do it to get credit.
Speaker 1: I did it to get it done right right. And
Speaker 1: then Planet Hope, my sister Kelly and I's organization, we
Speaker 1: went down there and we got those soldiers who were
Speaker 1: holding all the supplies in the trucks because they took
Speaker 1: the trucks down there, but then they didn't give the
Speaker 1: stuff to the people. Okay, so the whole bullshit of
Speaker 1: we're taking all these trucks down here, yeah, they did,
Speaker 1: but they didn't open the trucks, so it was like
Speaker 1: getting them to open the trucks. We also planned to
Speaker 1: Hope went down there and we bought kegs of beer
Speaker 1: right for the soldiers because guess what, that's how you
Speaker 1: get the trucks open right, right. And then we bought
Speaker 1: things for people that like the little things, eye class prescriptions,
Speaker 1: how you get your diabetes, your insulin filled, how you
Speaker 1: get your dentures, all the things that like the little
Speaker 1: things that people couldn't get back right, And we did
Speaker 1: on the ground stuff. But you know, we had a
Speaker 1: lot of girls from New Orleans and Louisiana and we
Speaker 1: call them are steel Magnolias. Yeah, and those girls, those
Speaker 1: girls can get stuff done right. So we get stuff
Speaker 1: done on the ground. We worked with Burlington Coat Factory.
Speaker 1: We get coats for kids to go to school. We
Speaker 1: work with you people to donate their seconds so we
Speaker 1: can get shoes for these migrant workers kids. You got
Speaker 1: to get on the ground and get in there. So
Speaker 1: that's when I started being a lyricist because I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wait a second, I can write songs about things
Speaker 1: that matter, you know, like this Nobel Peace Prize winner
Speaker 1: was machine gun to death in his car going to
Speaker 1: the airport in South America because he was in a
Speaker 1: car convoy and it was supposed to be like a
Speaker 1: cartel guy that was was going to be hit and
Speaker 1: they hit the wrong person. So I wrote a song
Speaker 1: about that guy. What's it like to know that as
Speaker 1: these killers are coming towards your car that that's it.
Speaker 1: It's the end of your life. And you spent your
Speaker 1: life about peace. You're such an artist, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're such a prolific artist to owe you to thank you,
Speaker 1: to express yourself. And so I thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can do these things. So I went back to
Speaker 1: college and got mine my bachelor's degree exactly because it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: I can do this. I can do this, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to go get my bachelor's degree. And when it
Speaker 1: came in the mail, I was so proud, Sharon, as
Speaker 1: we said of wrap a lunch because I can literally
Speaker 1: sit with you. We're going to have many lunches together
Speaker 1: our home and not always I obtes I have questions
Speaker 1: for you. You do yes? Oh my god, I want
Speaker 1: to say, who interviews you? I'm gonna come and interview
Speaker 1: you for your interviews? Would you do that? Yes? Yes,
Speaker 1: Bruce Bozzy Sharon Stone, Yeah, okay, you heard that. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do that. Be an honor. Um. I've described you
Speaker 1: as a champion, as a survivor, as a truth teller,
Speaker 1: as easy on the eyes. But I'm also going to
Speaker 1: say you're pretty chick and you have to read the
Speaker 1: beauty to understand what that means. So pick that out.
Speaker 1: I am and you you are very absolutely Adore you, Sharon,
Speaker 1: Thank you for Thank You. Table foot You with Bruce
Speaker 1: Bozzi is produced by iHeart Radio seven three seven Park
Speaker 1: and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce Bozzi, Jonathan Hoss
Speaker 1: Dresser and Nathan King. Table for two is edited and
Speaker 1: written by Tina Mullen and researched and written by Bridget
Speaker 1: arsenalt Our sound engineers are Emil B. Klein, Paul Bowman
Speaker 1: and Alyssa Midcaff. Table for two's la production team is
Speaker 1: Danielle Romo and Lorraine Viz. Our music supervisor is Randall Poster.
Speaker 1: Our talent booking is by Jane Sarkin. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Amy Sugarman, Uni Cher, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kantor
Speaker 1: Graber and Barbourne, Jen and Jeff Klein, and the staff
Speaker 1: at the Tower Bar in the world famous Sunset Tower Hotel.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.