Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone, Los Angeles CA, 2016. I photographed Sharon Stone in 1988 for the 1st time—we were both about the same age and at a point in our careers where we were being recognized for our work. Fast forward 30 years later, and we get to work together again.

It was for a magazine—this really thick quarterly magazine—very creative, very artful—called Spirit and Flesh. I was excited. I’ve got Sharon Stone, and I’ve got this great opportunity with a great magazine to be creative and do something really cool. So I’m getting ready for the shoot, and I get a phone call from Sharon. She’s like “Hi! I’m excited to shoot together again, but I did want to talk about it a little bit…I want you to shoot me like you shoot men.” And in my head, I was like, what? What does that mean? It was a little strange, but I said “Sure! Let’s do it.”

We get to set, and I had just found the quaalude–the one I talked about in my recent post. So I walked in the makeup room, and I’m trying to get the energy up before we start, and I’m trying to connect. So I walk in, and I go, “So I gotta tell you guys, this weekend I found this quaalude in my drawer. A Rorer 714.” And she goes, “Honey, you bring the quaalude. I’ll bring a bottle of wine. Let’s split that thing.” I knew it was going to be a great shoot.

When we started, the shots were very feminine and fashiony. But I had that comment she made in the back of my mind. And then we’re on location on PCH, and she jumps up onto this railing with a hundred foot drop down to the highway. She starts screaming, and I’m egging her on because I get what she meant when she said she wanted me to shoot her like a man. It’s this energy, and she was feeling it.

She didn’t want me to just make it a beauty shot. She wanted to make it a good photograph. Sharon was into the art, into the work–into doing the thing that makes the magic happen. In my work, there’s texture, and there’s grit. And I think that’s what she saw in my photos, and that’s what she wanted me to do.