Sharon Stone on the Uncomfortable Incident That Proved Why Intimacy Coaches Are Needed

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Sharon Stone has seen it all. From her early days of modeling in Europe to her 40-year-long career in Hollywood, she’s surely got enough salacious material to fill more than a few memoirs. While Stone hasn’t been too revealing about her professional life as it relates to #MeToo, in 2018 she did laugh in the face of a CBS news reporter who asked if she’d ever felt uncomfortable on set, implying that she’s had plenty of rough experiences. Now, in a recent issue of Attitude Magazine (via The Independent), Stone shared one moment that made her feel uneasy early in her career, and explained how it’s evidence that intimacy coordinators are needed on film and TV sets.

“They didn’t have [intimacy coordinators] in my day,” Stone said. “When I did my first movie, which was ‘Irreconcilable Differences,’ I had a topless scene. And they didn’t even clear the set. Everybody’s on set, like a million people on the set. And I take off my top and this actor screams, ‘Would you get out of the f***ing way? I can’t even see her t**s.’”

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The role of intimacy coordinators has become increasingly used as a safety measure in post-#MeToo Hollywood to make actors feel comfortable during nude and sex scenes, including on recent sexually graphic TV hits “I May Destroy You” and “Normal People.”

“I [was] so terrified,” Stone said of her experience on the 1984 comedy starring Ryan O’Neal, Shelley Long, and Drew Barrymore, where Stone played a young, aspiring actor who’s discovered at a hot dog stand. “You know when you can hear your heartbeat in your ears? That’s all I could hear. And I hear him scream, ‘Get out of the way. I can’t see her f***ing t**s.’ I’m just like, talk about no intimacy.”

Back in November 2019, Stone talked about her experience working on the 1992 thriller “Basic Instinct” that features Stone’s famous “leg-crossing” scene, as directed by Paul Verhoeven. While accepting a Woman of the Year prize at the Berlin GQ Men of the Year Awards, Stone said, “Some years ago I was sitting on a sound stage, and my director said, ‘Can you hand me your underpants because we’re seeing them in the scene and you shouldn’t have underpants on, but we won’t see anything.’ “I said, ‘Sure.’ I didn’t know this moment would change my life.”

IndieWire recently spoke with the intimacy coordinator from HBO’s “The Deuce,” Alicia Rodis, about the process of working with actors to ensure their safety.

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