Sharon Stone takes on Hollywood’s gender pay gap again.
Speaking at New York Women in Film & Television’s 43rd Annual Muse Awards on Tuesday, the actress said her performances in 1992 earned her just $500,000 basic instinct, directed by Paul Verhoeven, while her co-star Michael Douglas got $13.5 million more.
“Michael Douglas made $14 million,” Stone told the crowd page six. “Well, I was new. I was new and he was a very big star.”
Douglas got into the project after winning two Academy Awards and film credits Wall Street, The China Syndrome, Romancing the Stone And Fateful attraction. Stone had made 17 films but was relatively unknown except for her role in the 1990s total recall, which Verhoeven also directed.
Stone – who just two weeks ago said she lost half her fortune due to the recent banking crisis – also opened up about how a producer on the adult thriller mistakenly called her Karen throughout the film. She said, “Even at the Governor’s Ball” after the Oscars, “he still called me ‘Karen!’ And I really carried that humiliation deep inside me — even though my name wasn’t on the poster.”
Stone – who played crime writer/possible murderer Catherine Tramell – has spoken a lot about her experiences over the past year primal instinct.
Earlier this month, the 65-year-old said she lost custody of her eldest son, Roan, now 22, because of her nude scene in the film. In her Phil Bronstein divorce battle, she said a judge asked her “tiny little” son, “‘Do you know your mother makes sex films?'” She noted that viewers of the film “saw maybe a 16th of a second of the possible nudity in the film. As a result of losing custody in 2004, Stone, who later adopted two more sons on her own, said that she “ended up at the Mayo Clinic with extra heartbeats in my upper and lower chambers of the heart. It broke my heart.”
Talking at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia in December, Stone spoken about the wage gap between her and Douglas and said her salary did not give her enough money to provide for her own safety amidst the fame she gained through the film. “I made $500,000 and Michael Douglas made $14 million. Michael could afford the car, the driver and the bodyguard,” she said. “I had to move because people were on my roof and broke down my door. I couldn’t afford the things I needed because of the sudden fame I had.”
In the same interview, she said: “There was this backlash that I have to be like my character – I have to kill people and be naked and show my vagina in the supermarket. It became personally traumatic in my life; I lost custody of my baby in my divorce because the judge ruled that I make sex films.” She also revealed that she “went into the studio and asked them for a small budget” hoping to start her own film project afterward to direct primal instinct, “aAnd I was laughed out of the room. I was told ‘women don’t direct’.”
Also in December, Stone co-starred Casino, said on social media that as a working actress she “never got the same pay” and hopes one day her kids will sell her movie costumes when she’s gone.
Last February, to mark the film’s 30th anniversary, Stone wrote one essay for InStyle spoke about negotiations to keep her costumes to cover some of the salary difference, which turned out to be a smart move. “I was 32 when I got the role of Catherine Tramell,” she wrote. “It was probably about as late as you could get in your career without a big break. But from the moment I read the script, I knew I was the right person for the role. It was an intellectually complex role, and I felt like I really had a handle on it.” “For the longest time, however, I was certain that they would cast me with someone else because how could I possibly work alongside Michael Douglas performing? I thought maybe I was just a placeholder. But during those first wardrobe adjustments it really started to sink in. I couldn’t believe how exciting it was and all the incredible costumes that were made just for me. I signed my contract to keep the clothes People thought I was crazy but the truth is I wasn’t paid much compared to my male co-star I made $500k Michael $14m So it was a really smart thing to keep my costumes.” She still has “almost the entire wardrobe,” including “the white dress and coat,” from the infamous interrogation scene — in which her character uncrossed her legs and notoriously no underwear – which “was zipped up in a garment bag on set, and it has never been opened since.” I broke the zipper so it’s hermetically sealed like a piece of art or a very cool time capsule.”
The year before, Stone published her memoir, The beauty of living twice and in it she claimed she was tricked into removing her underwear for the film’s interrogation scene under the pretense that she would not be visible in the film. Stone didn’t see the scene until she was invited to a screening. She was so angry that she consulted her lawyer. Verhoeven claimed he checked with Stone and said his “memory is radically different from Sharon’s memory”.
Stone is just one of the stars speaking about the gender pay gap in Hollywood this week. Kelly Ripa said her husband Mark Consuelos made more money than she did all my children although she joined the show years after her.
Source : www.yahoo.com