Sharon Stone says she paid Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Quick and the Dead salary after studio refused to hire him

Studio were scared to take a chance on the ‘unknown’ actor

Sharon Stone has claimed that she paid Leonardo DiCaprio’s salary on The Quick and the Dead after the studio refused to cast him.

The pair starred together in Sam Raimi’s 1995 revisionist Western about a female gunslinger (Stone) who takes on outlaw John Herod (Gene Hackman) in a duelling competition.

DiCaprio played John’s son Fee “The Kid” Herod in the film, with Stone writing in her new memoir The Beauty of Living Twice that many teenage actors had auditioned for the role.

Stone, who also co-produced The Quick and the Dead, wrote (via Insider): “This kid named Leonardo DiCaprio was the only one who nailed the audition, in my opinion: he was the only one who came in and cried, begging his father to love him as he died in the scene.”

However, she claimed that studio TriStar Pictures weren’t keen on casting the “unknown” actor, who was yet to get his big break with Romeo + Juliet and Titanic.

Teenage DiCaprio in The Quick and the Dead (Murray Close/Tri Star/Kobal/Shutterstock)

“‘Why an unknown, Sharon, why are you always shooting yourself in the foot?’” the Basic Instinct star recalled being told.

“The studio said if I wanted him so much, I could pay him out of my own salary. So I did.”

Earlier this week, Stone revealed in an interview promoting the book that a doctor enlarged her breasts by “a full cup size” in 2001 without her consent.