Sharon Stone criticized filmmaker Sam Raimi after he said he didn’t recognize the opportunity she gave him early in his career.
The Basic Instinct star, 66, made the comments about Raimi during a question-and-answer period at a press conference in Turin, Italy, during the Torino Film Festival last week. Deadline reported on Monday.
The Oscar-nominated actress spoke about the Spider-Man filmmaker in the middle of the festival’s screening of The Quick and the Dead, the 1995 western that Stone starred in and Raimi directed.
Stone, who played the role of Ellen in the film alongside Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Gary Sinise and Leonardo DiCaprio, spoke about the influence she had on the making of the film, which hit theaters in February 1995.
“I had my great Italian cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, and I was very lucky to produce and have the opportunity to cast this film,” said Stone, who also made headlines for his political comments at the festival.
He continued, “Director Sam Raimi, who I had the opportunity to take from B movies to A movies, and then he directed Spider-Man and became a great A movie director.”
Sharon Stone, 66, criticized filmmaker Sam Raimi after he said he didn’t recognize the opportunities she gave him early in his career. Photographed on November 24 in Italy during the Turin Film Festival.
Stone said she “really enjoyed producing” and was proud to have been involved in casting DiCaprio and Crowe before their respective runs with 1997’s Titanic and 2000’s Gladiator.
“Sam was a child and he has no loyalty, he has no family, he never spoke to me again, he didn’t thank me, he didn’t hire me again, he didn’t acknowledge the relationship.
Stone said that his personal feelings for Raimi did not influence his high opinion of his work, although he compared him to another filmmaker he collaborated with, Martin Scorsese.
“In the case of Sam Raimi, I really liked his movies,” Stone said. “I thought he was very smart and very funny, different from Marty Scorsese, because he’s Italian, he has loyalty, he has that family feeling.”
“And that’s why Marty and I still have a relationship and that’s why Marty and I still work together.”
Projects on which Stone and Scorsese have collaborated include 1995’s Casino, which earned Stone the only Oscar of her career for her role as Ginger.
Stone was part of a cast that included Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and James Woods, as well as the late Frank Vincent, Alan King and Don Rickles.
Stone at the press conference said that sexism in Hollywood hindered her career behind the camera, as at one point she was working on directing a film about three decades ago.
Stone played the role of Ellen in the film, which hit theaters in February 1995, alongside Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Gary Sinise and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Stone said of Raimi: “Sam was a child and he has no loyalty, he has no family, he never spoke to me again, he didn’t thank me, he didn’t hire me again. He didn’t acknowledge the relationship. The filmmaker photographed in 2022 in Los Angeles
Stone was honored with the Stella della Mole award during the festival on November 22
“After producing The Quick and the Dead, I came to the studio and asked for $14 million,” he said. ‘I had a script, I had the music, I had everything. I threw it everywhere.
“I was told it was the best speech anyone had ever heard, but in reality, a woman, ultimately, in my period of the ’90s and early 2000s, the resistance to women working, to me working , was so big that he couldn’t “go back to directing and that was unfortunate, but I feel like my intelligence was wasted trying to convince less intelligent studio heads to let me direct.”
Stone said she was eventually asked to help in the studios’ casting department, “which she did because she was obviously very good at producing.”
Stone added: “I just feel like the resistance to women having power, the resistance to me having power, has been very great and the resistance to allowing my intelligence to be useful has been enormous and from people of lesser intelligence.”