Photo: Thomas Niedermueller/Getty
During a discussion about her career at the Zurich Film Festival, where she received this year’s Golden Icon Award, Stone, 63, opened up about her family life while growing up in Pennsylvania.
The actress called her father an “extreme feminist,” perVariety,before explaining, “He came from wealth, from oil drilling, and when he was little, there was a huge accident. His father died three months later and all the money went to another family.”
She continued, “He thought it was so wrong that his mother didn’t get half of it, just because she was a woman. My dad was insistent that I have this feminist attitude. So much so that I never thought of myself as a feminist. These were the rules of my household.”
Sharon Stone.Rich Polk/Getty
Stone also revealed her mother’s parenting style, describing her as “tough.”
“I asked her: ‘Why you never let me lean on you?’ She said: ‘Because I taught you to stand on your two goddamn feet,’ " Stone remembered.
Referring to her memoir,The Beauty of Living Twice, Stone added, “When I wrote this book and read it to her, she told me about her life. I realized that for my mother, teaching me to stand on my two goddamn feet was teaching me to love myself.”
Later in the ZFF conversation, Stone revealed some of the struggles she faced as a woman in Hollywood, where she said she faced pressure to change her appearance.
“In Los Angeles, they were always trying to make me very feminine. ‘Don’t be so aggressive, Sharon. Don’t be so loud, don’t have so many opinions,’ " she said, but added thatBasic InstinctdirectorPaul Verhoevenaccepted her just as she was.
“With him, I went in looking like a 9-foot tall Viking,” she recalled. “He said: ‘You are big, you are strong. I like that.’ We were on.”
Reflecting on her decades-long career, Stone said, “I am grateful that women get to work now, but I didn’t – not for 20 years.”
When she turned 40, she said, she didn’t receive any more work, but was left with more time to spend with family and use toward her humanitarian work.
“Karmically, it worked out great. Financially, not so much,” she said. “I feel that my biggest accomplishment is surviving. It’s a big deal surviving in a business like this.”
Stone recently appeared inRatched, Ryan Murphy’sOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestprequel series. Next up, she’s set to star in theNetflixdramaBeautyand the romance filmWhat About Love.
source: people.com
