Can you believe it’s been 29 years since the 1992 film Basic Instinct was released?
Lucky for us, we can get an intimate look at what premiere day looked like for Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone.
“I hired a limo. Mimi and I started in Harlem and went to movie theaters all over NYC, from one side of town to the other, into the wee hours of the morning,” she recalls in an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice shared with Vanity Fair.
They bought bowler derby hats and wore glasses as disguises, spending about 20 minutes at each theater to see audiences react.
“We were having a ball, seeing the reactions all over town,” Sharon Stone recalls. She goes on to write, “And the audiences went wild, they loved this movie! It was one of the best times.”
The critics failed to agree.
Sharon Stone goes on to say: “What is a critic? Someone who sees movies for free and then tells you what they think. What is an audience? Someone who tells you how a movie makes them feel.”
We watch movies because they make us feel, and even 29 years later, Basic Instinct is a movie that makes us feel.
Let’s take a look at what the Basic Instinct cast is up to nowadays, starting with Sharon Stone in her breakthrough role.
Basic Instinct cast – what is Sharon Stone up to now?
Sharon Stone’s role as Catherine Trammell was her breakout role in Hollywood, but it was no easy part to play. “I can say that the role was by far the most stretching that I had ever done in terms of considering the dark side of myself,” Sharon Stone writes in an excerpt from her upcoming memoir shared with Vanity Fair.
“I had to find a certain coping mechanism to play that part, with all kinds of resistance around myself and around the film happening simultaneously,” she goes on to say. “The ways that I had learned to disappear inside myself made it possible to disappear inside this character, who was as tough and smooth as the white silk scarf she wore.”
In the excerpt, Sharon Stone acknowledges how people perceived her as bold. “People used to say, ‘Sharon Stone has the biggest balls in Hollywood,’” the actress recalls in her memoir excerpt in Vanity Fair. “It’s not a coincidence that I was the first woman to get paid something considered respectable—still a whole lot less than men, but more than women had been paid in the past.”
She mentions how people would say men were intimidated by her, and how that just makes her want to cry. Oftentimes, Sharon Stone was the only woman on set, saying “Can you imagine what it was like to be the only woman on a set—to be the only naked woman, with maybe one or two other women standing near? The costumer and the script gal? And now I am the intimidating one.” She goes on to open up to some horrifying situations, including a “#MeToo candidate” who refused to direct her––the star of the movie––because she wouldn’t sit on his lap to take direction.
“I think that I am not alone in processing some pent-up female rage,” Sharon Stone explains. “It’s unnerving to know that for me, this rage was so controlled, I think because I was forced to control it for so long, to keep it hidden as though it were my shame. This was the nature of abuse in my era. Everything carried the heavy weight of threat.”
“Thank God it is not that way now. The whole system is changing,” she writes later on. “The financial burden is real, and the old boys’ club isn’t covering for this anymore. There are more women at the helm, and they aren’t in the pocket of the men, forced to play along or be canned.”
So, what is Sharon Stone up to now?
While she still takes time to act in TV shows and films (most recently, Sharon Stone starred in Netflix’s Ratched as Lenore Osgood and she absolutely SLAYED), she has also embraced a Buddhism practice and no longer sees acting as her whole life.
“I do still like it. Actually, I like it more than before. I feel much more comfortable in it, and it’s a whole lot easier to do,” she writes about acting now. “I feel less pressure when I do it now, as it is not my entire world. I have also had more profound life experiences to bring to it. When the workday is over, good or bad—and it’s mostly always good—I go home to a house full of love, so no big deal.”
Sharon Stone blesses us on Instagram with pics of her dogs, her adopted sons, and throwbacks like this one from 1991:
Can we talk about the iconic Basic Instinct leg cross in the interrogation scene from Sharon Stone’s perspective?
If you’ve seen Basic Instinct, you know the scene we’re talking about. Sharon Stone stuns in an all-white outfit as Catherine Tramell interrogating [names]. She’s smoking a cigarette and goes to cross her legs, and the whole world gets to see more than Sharon Stone ever thought we would.
“Yes, there have been many points of view on this topic, but since I’m the one with the vagina in question, let me say: The other points of view are bullshit,” Sharon Stone writes in the excerpt from her upcoming memoir published in Vanity Fair.
Reminder: this is 1992. Far before the #MeToo movement, at a time where Hollywood men ruled the sets and studios.
Sharon Stone recalls how she felt right after watching the scene in a “room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project.” She says, “Now, here is the issue. It didn’t matter anymore. It was me and my parts up there. I had decisions to make.”
Her lawyer, the well-known Marty Singer, said that they couldn’t legally release the film as it was, but when she went to speak to Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven, she writes how “Of course, he vehemently denied that I had any choices at all. I was just an actress, just a woman; what choices could I have?”
Sharon Stone goes on to write, “But I did have choices. So I thought and thought and I chose to allow this scene in the film. Why? Because it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it.”
So, what is the rest of the Basic Instinct cast up to nowadays?
Michael Douglas, who plays the troubled Detective Nick Curran, has been with fellow actress Catherine Zeta-Jones for 20 years. The happy couple attended the 2021 Golden Globes together:
Michael Douglas shared a throwback Basic Instinct pic in honor of co-star Sharon Stone’s birthday:
Jeanne Tripplehorn plays the police psychologist Dr. Beth Garner who has an on-again, off-again affair with Nick.
Earlier this month, Deadline shared that Jeanne Tripplehorn will star alongside Chris Pratt, Constance Wu, and Taylor Kitsch in an Amazon thriller series called The Terminal List. Jeanne Tripplehorn will play Lorraine Hartley, the first female Secretary of Defense. We can’t wait to watch, and in the meantime we plan to read Jack Carr’s bestselling book and watch her in the Hulu miniseries Miss America.
Leilani Sarelle, who plays Roxy, is now a mother of three and seems to live a quiet life. Her Instagram is private and it doesn’t seem like she is acting anymore.
George Dzundza plays Detective Gus Moran and also hasn’t appeared in any movies or TV shows recently. You may remember him as Sergeant Max Greevey in Law and Order where he appeared on 22 episodes.
Wayne Knight, who plays John Correli, is known for his role as Newman in Seinfeld and Officer Don Orville in 3rd Rock from the Sun. Wayne Knight is still active in Hollywood playing various smaller roles in films and TV shows.
Here’s what people are saying about Basic Instinct
29 years later, people are still talking about Basic Instinct.
every man in basic instinct: but we live in a society
sharon stone: no❤️
— stasis baby (@HarronWawker) December 10, 2020
No thx
No, Grandma; you can’t pull a Basic Instinct for extra potatoes at the retirement home.
— Jawbreaker (@sixfootcandy) July 12, 2019
Sorry grandma that doesn’t work irl
*does Basic Instinct leg cross*
*remembers I’m wearing jeans*
— ThisOneSays (@ThisOneSayz) February 16, 2017
Oh well, try again another day
One can’t overstate the catalytic role played by BASIC INSTINCT in the great erotic thriller gold rush of the early 90s.
— Jay Baruchel ?? (@BaruchelNDG) November 7, 2020
Lots of $5 words in this tweet
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Pause– Teenage me, watching Basic Instinct on video
— Token Geezer (@Token_Geezer) November 22, 2014
Remember VHS tapes?
Buy or rent Basic Instinct on Amazon Prime.
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Saoirse Ronan: the Hollywood woman we love to watch
8 life lessons from the movie Fargo, 25 years later
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