28 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | Q&A
Qsaltlake.com |
ISSUE 318 | DECEMBER, 2020
You Can Count on Sharon Stone BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI
That scene.
You know the one: the one in Basic Instinct where Sharon Stone’s legs
might explain why working for the first time with Ryan Murphy, known for bringing actresses over 50 (Jessica Lange, Kathy
are open. It’s been talked about and talked about, and talked
Bates, and now Stone) into his lavishly stylized queerverse of
about some more. It’s been talked about so much in the years
prestige TV, was so special. In Murphy’s dark dramedy Ratched
since it shook the world in 1992 that it has diminished the
for Netflix, an origins story of Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over
other non-crotch facets of Sharon Stone.
the Cuckoo’s Nest, the 62-year-old actress portrays the deli-
What nobody talks about anymore is her heart, her courage
ciously insane Lenore Osgood, a rich, twice-widowed mother
and her activism. As Stone pushed through the male-dom-
who’d rather spend time with her Capuchin monkey than her
inating Hollywood sphere of the 1990s to reach top-tier
queer son (played by openly gay actor Brandon Flynn). The
cinematic heights through her work in 1990’s Total Recall and
series also stars out actresses Sarah Paulson, as nurse Mildred
then Basic Instinct, an Oscar nomination for Casino solidifying
Ratched, and Sex and the City star and political activist Cynthia
her influential screen presence, she was giving a voice to the
Nixon, who portrays Gwendolyn Briggs, the press secretary for
voiceless. She was speaking up for marginalized women. She
the Governor of California.
was speaking up for the LGBTQ community. She was speaking up for herself.
When I spoke with Stone recently by phone, she did talk about the show’s queerness. But it was the touching story of
And to this day, she still does.
her late father, Joe, who took her gay friends under his wing,
Stone’s enduring affinity with the LGBTQ community
that you won’t forget.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX
