What happened to Sharon Stone on the sets of Sliver (1993)? Details explored as actress opens up on recent podcast

American actress Sharon Stone appeared on an episode of the Louis Theroux Podcast which was released on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. During the episode, the veteran actress opened up about multiple things including details of the kind of pressures she faced during her career in Hollywood. The actress, whose film career began in the 1950s, Stone was last seen in 2023's What About Love, among other films.

The 66-year-old actress spoke to Theroux about an incident that took place while she was working on the 1993 film Sliver. Sharon Stone said that while working on the film, she felt consistently pressurized by the film's producer Robert Evans to have s*xual relations with her co-star Billy Baldwin. While Stone had written about this in her 2021 memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, she hadn't named the late producer at the time.

The actress has appeared in films like Basic Instinct 2 to Casino and over the years, she has shown her acting prowess and versatility. Over the years, Stone has acted in multiple critically acclaimed movies while also producing several films.

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Sharon Stone reveals details about experience on the set of Sliver

Sharon Stone began her career in Hollywood in the late 1980s and it is possible that she might still have been looking for a big breakthrough in the early 1990s. This was around the time, she was offered the role in Sliver where she starred opposite Billy Baldwin.

Produced by Robert Evans, the film was directed by Phillip Noyce and is based on the novel of the same name by Ira Levin. A thriller film, it was the story of an editor who moves into a luxury New York apartment that has seen the deaths of multiple other female tenants.

During the filming of Sliver, the film's producer Robert Evans was reportedly unhappy with the chemistry between Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin's characters. According to Stone, Evans called her to his office where he made her sit on a very low sofa which made her feel like she was "essentially sitting on the floor."

“And he’s 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, and we needed Billy to get better in the movie because that was the problem,” Stone recalled on the podcast.

Sharon Stone told Louis that she believed Evans' logic was simple yet unfounded. She noted that the producer had no issues with her performance in the movie but believed that Baldwin wasn't at his best during the filming.

She recalled the producer telling her that the "real problem" with her was that she was "so uptight." Stone went on to say that she was told that if she "could sleep with Billy," they would have on-screen chemistry to "save the movie."

“The real problem with the movie was me because I was so uptight, and so not like a real actress who could just f*ck him and get things back on track. The real problem was I was such a tight a**," Stone said during the podcast episode.

However, Sharon Stone said that she asked the filmmakers to consider actors like Michael Douglas for the role instead as she had previously worked with him.

"I didn’t have to f–k Michael Douglas. Michael could come to work and know how to hit those marks, and do that line, and rehearse and show up," she said.

This reportedly led to the belief that Billy Baldwin might have needed his co-stars to have s*xual relations with him. That, in turn, led to Baldwin pressurizing Sharon Stone and Ava Gardner. The latter is a Golden Globe winner who starred in 1953's Mogambo but is yet to speak about her side of the story.

As she continued to tell Theroux about the incident, she said that she turned down Evans and decided to keep quiet at the time as she was a rising star and didn't want to rub people the wrong way. Although the incident was hidden in 1993, it was brought to light in 2021 in her memoir and in her latest interview with Theroux as well.

Sharon Stone's opening up about the incident sheds light on the sometimes exploitative practices and situations that female actors have to suffer through, to make it in the industry. Further reactions on the matter can be expected in the coming time.