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| Five Questions With... If These Walls Could Talk 2's Sharon Stone By Frank Lovece Some actresses, or more precisely their advisers, would've been leery of a lesbian role. How did you come to play Fran, the woman who wants to get pregnant with her lesbian partner? "They asked me. Anne [Heche, the writer-director] and I had been acquaintances, so she called my manager. He called me up and said, 'I don't know if you really wanna do this, because it's her first time directing and it's TV and...' I said, 'Chuck, she's a big talent. I think I'd better take a look.' Then [afterward] Anne called me and said, 'I'm doing this; what do you think?' 'Please send it over.' I read it and [thought], 'Man, this is fabulous.' " Does that happen often, that kind of instant connection with a role? "The Muse was like that. Casino was like that for me in such a big way it scared me, and it took me a minute to kinda wrap my brain around that. Basic Instinct was like that. When I read it I thought, 'Man, this is for me.' And then sometimes I'll read projects and I'll call the director and say, 'You know who you really want for this part?' Because I'll read it and I just can tell that it's right for another actor. But sometimes I read it and think, 'I don't think anybody's gonna get this as much as I get it.' I felt that about this piece." Unlike a comedic, essentially de-sexed lesbian role on a sitcom, this one involved an explicit lovemaking scene between yourself and your co-star, Ellen DeGeneres. Actors say that heterosexual sex scenes are hard enough. What was it like doing this one? "It is hard to do a heterosexual love scene. It's much harder than this was. But in all honesty, for men, they have an issue of, 'Am I gonna get an erection, is that a problem, and if I don't, is that weird?' It's much more physically revealing for a man to do a love scene than a woman, and I think that men get real nervous about that, and women [in hetero sex scenes] get nervous and don't want anything strange to occur. And I mean, having anybody around is also weird. But there was something about this � I have to say I think this goes back to Anne. Anne is such a loving person, and I don't want to sound too woo-woo but she's so enlightened that she took all of that out of the environment; it just didn't exist. There wasn't any salacious intent or environment." One sees nude or nearly nude woman-woman sex in mainstream films, such as Bound and Set It Off, and no one finds that particularly unusual. Is there a double standard that there's no similarly explicit man-man sex in mainstream films? "Well, it's still a man's world, y'know? And the last thing men are ready to be is objectified by women. It's scary to them." Ellen says that even though she's against outing anyone, there are certain gay stars that she'd like to out, because she finds them hypocritical. As a gay-rights advocate yourself, have you ever been tempted? "I almost outed someone once. I was in a conflicting situation with them, where they were really pointing a hugely judgmental finger at someone for misrepresenting themselves, and being violently outspoken about it. And I nearly outed them in the process, because it was happening in a public place. A woman. And I had to just (pause), I had to really (pause) stay focused and behave myself." |
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| 5 questions with sharon stone |