Every actor aspires to play at least one distinct part in their career that fans remember and cherish for decades. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack in Titanic and Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean are among the rare few parts that fit the bill. Sharon Stone also boasts such a role.
Stone played Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct, a 1992 neo-noir erotic thriller film following Detective Nike’s investigation of Johnny Boz’s murder and his subsequent obsession with Johnny’s girlfriend Catherine.
More than three decades later, Stone’s stint in the movie is still fresh in the minds of millions of fans. However, the most-talked-about scene of Basic Instinct was apparently shot without the actress being aware of every detail being captured by the camera.
Sharon Stone Sheds Light on How Her Leg-Crossing Scene in Basic Instinct Was Shot
Basic Instinct proved to be the breakthrough film for Sharon Stone, who rose to stardom overnight and ended up becoming one of the most sought-after actors in the 90s.
Without taking anything away from her sharp performance as suspected killer Catherine Tramell, who relished taking risks, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that the biggest reason behind Stone attracting all the attention was her infamous leg-crossing scene.
However, it turns out that the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it n*de scene was captured without Stone’s proper knowledge. The 65-year-old revealed in an interview:
“I knew that we were going to do this leg-crossing thing, and I knew that we were going to allude to the concept that I was n-de, but I did not think that you would see my v*gina in this scene.”
She continued: “So, no obviously, it was not something that in feature films in this day and time in the world we could ever imagine would actually occur and be seen. But when we’re doing the film. Paul told me that you could see the reflection of my underwear in the film and you knew that I had underwear, so we would have to take out the underwear.”
However, Stone was left “shocked” and “stunned” when she later saw the screening and found out that director Paul Verhoeven included her v*gina in the scene.
In the same interview, she admitted that had Verhoeven been honest with her about his intentions, she would’ve had time to come to terms with it. Instead, seeing that scene for the first time in a room full of strangers shocked her, and she felt disrespected.
Stone revealed that she went into the booth and slapped the director and left.
Paul Verhoeven Disagreed With Sharon Stone’s Recollection of the Iconic Scene
Interestingly, the leg-uncrossing scene wasn’t in the original script (via IMDb). It was brought up by Verhoeven during the filming.
The director, however, had a very different account of how things unraveled on the set. He told Variety in 2021:
“My memory is radically different from Sharon’s memory. That does not stand in the way and has nothing to do with the wonderful way that she portrayed Catherine Tramell. She is absolutely phenomenal. We still have a pleasant relationship and exchange text messages. But her version is impossible. She knew exactly what we were doing.”
Verhoeven also revealed that the whole idea of showing the v*gina came from his past experience. When he was a student, he encountered a woman who did the crossing of her legs without panties regularly at parties. He told the story to Stone and she supposedly agreed to do a similar sequence.
