More than 30 years after starring together in silver screen flop Sliver, Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin are recalling unhappy memories about making the movie.
In an appearance on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Stone named former Paramount Pictures chief Robert Evans as the producer who pressured her to have sex with Baldwin to improve his performance. Evans died in 2019.
Stone told the story in her 2021 memoir, but declined to name those involved. That changed this week, as she recalled her time on Sliver in her interview with Theroux.
“[Evans is] running around his office in sunglasses explaining that he slept with Ava Gardner and I should sleep with Billy Baldwin, because [then] his performance would get better,” Stone said.
“If I could sleep with Billy, then we’d have chemistry on screen and save the movie. The real problem was me because I was so uptight, and not like a real actress who could just f*** him and get things back on track. The real problem was I was such a tightarse.”
Stone argued that she did not have the same problem with Michael Douglas, who she starred alongside in Basic Instinct the year before Sliver’s release.
“I didn’t have to f*** 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. “Now all of a sudden I’m in the ‘I have to f*** people’ business.”
After seeing the comments, Baldwin — brother of Alec — posted on Twitter (now X) about his recollections of working with Stone. He alleged that he implored Evans to choreograph a sex scene so that he did not have to kiss Stone.
“Not sure why Sharon Stone keep talking about me all these years later?” Baldwin said. “Does she still have a crush on me or is she still hurt after all these years because I shunned her advances?”
He added: “I have so much dirt on her it would make her head spin but I’ve kept quiet. The story of the meeting I had with Bob Evans imploring him allow me to choreograph the final sex scene in the photo below so I wouldn’t have to kiss Sharon is absolute legend. Wonder if I should write a book and tell the many, many disturbing, kinky and unprofessional tales about Sharon? That might be fun.”