The role Sharon Stone will always regret not getting: “I really wanted that movie”
Hollywood has a tough and bracing process for dealing with women in power, as female actors are often not offered the same opportunities that their male co-stars, and Sharon Stone is a great example of an actor who seemed to be locked in by her own success.
Even though Basic Instinct was a massive hit that proved that erotic thrillers could be genuine blockbusters, in the aftermath, desiring to be known for her acting skills, and not just her sex appeal, Stone struggled to be taken seriously by critical pundits, many of whom dismissed her outright.
To change perception, she attempted to step outside her boxed-in identity in the 1990s with genre films like The Specialist, The Quick and the Dead, and Diabolique, but none of them brought the positive reviews that was looking for, and while she did end up netting an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the Martin Scorsese gangster film Casino, she was still overshadowed by her co-stars, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, who had already developed a strong working relationship with the director.
It’s not entirely fair to blame a star for pursuing what roles are offered to them, as some, like Stone, are forced to do the best with the material that they are given, but that doesn’t stop them from regretting missing out on opprtunities and Stone, similarly, expressed disappointment in missing out on a role in American Beauty, which she thinks may have changed her career in a positive way.
“I really would’ve liked to be in that movie with Kevin Spacey, but Annette Bening got the part,” Stone lamented, “I wanted that movie. I really wanted that movie, but there were a lot of other movies that I wanted.”
It might be hard to overstate for someone who didn’t live through it how big a deal American Beauty was, the debut feature from legendary theater director Sam Mendes, which became the most buzzed-about film of 1999, and took home the Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’ for Mendes, ‘Best Actor’ for Spacey, ‘Best Original Screenplay’ for Wes Ball, and ‘Best Cinematography’ for Conrad L Hall.
Although today there is a real distinction between blockbusters and Oscar contenders, American Beauty managed to make over $350million worldwide, becoming the ninth highest-grossing film of the year.
Even if Spacey ended up getting the most accolades for his performance as Lester Burnham, Bening’s performance as Carolyn was so good that it’s easy to see why Stone desired it. Although romantic dramas of the ‘90s didn’t always offer actor-dynamic roles, Carolyn was a complex, flawed, and ultimately empathetic maternal figure who had to contend with the reality that her husband did not love her anymore. Bening had already been a beloved actor thanks to her work in The Grifters and The American President, but American Beauty shot her career to the next level.
Stone may have been upset about missing out at the time, but the project has since been subjected to some controversies. Any film that is so widely praised is bound to draw in its detractors eventually, and contemporary critics have described American Beauty as ‘cheesy’ and ‘melodramatic’.
Additionally, the controversies surrounding Spacey have put some of the film’s disturbing plot points in a different perspective. Stone had certainly come out on the better end of many controversies, but it’s unclear if her career would have been either helped or hurt by American Beauty.
