Sharon Stone says she’s ‘shocked’ her career never reached heights of Casino again

‘I did everything to be my very best,’ the ‘Basic Instinct’ star shared

Sharon Stone has said she is “shocked” her career did not continue to go as well as she’d hoped after the success of her movie Casino.

The 66-year-old was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for playing Ginger McKenna in the 1995 epic crime film, which also starred Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein.

Stone, who is now a painter charging up to $40,000 per artwork, shared that her role as McKenna is the one she is proudest of, although she is also renowned for playing femme fatale Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct.

Despite having featured in multiple leading roles, she told The Guardian that she was surprised she was unable to continue to find work.

“I was shocked that I didn’t get to continue to work well, because I did everything to be my very best.”

Her ability to take on roles in Hollywood was impacted by a brain haemorrhage that caused a stroke in 2001, just as her career was taking off. It inspired the title of her 2021 memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice.

“When a door closes, I have to open another one,” she said. “My book’s been sold in 22 countries so far.”

Stone was forced to take a career hiatus as a result of the injury and told USA Today in 2019: “[When] you find yourself at the back of the line in your business, as I did, [you] have to figure yourself out all over again.”

In an interview with The Independent, the actor-turned-painter shared that her age had also contributed to difficulty in finding work.

“They don’t know how to cast you or know what you’re right for,” she said. “I tell them, ‘Imagine I am Gene Hackman and cast me like that.’ I can play a judge, I can play a federal officer, a comedian, a politician. Don’t think of me as a gender, and you can cast me quite easily.”

Sharon Stone said she is ‘shocked’ her career did not continue to do well (Getty Images)

A vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement, Stone recently revealed that Hollywood producer Robert Evans had advised her to have sex with her fellow lead William Baldwin to improve his performance on the 1993 movie Sliver.

The actor first wrote about the incident in The Beauty of Living Twice.

Evans, best known for his work on Rosemary’s Baby and The Godfather, died of natural causes in 2019. He was 89.

Baldwin appeared to deny the claims as he hit out at her remarks in a post on X/Twitter, saying: “Not sure why Sharon Stone keeps talking about me all these years later? Does she still have a crush on me or is she still hurt after all these years because I shunned her advances?”

In an interview last November on the Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa podcast, Stone explained that she “specifically did not name names in my book, because it’s a pointless exercise, they know who they are”.