These days, Sharon Stone seems like a real peach to hang around with. The actress is now criticizing her “The Quick and the Dead” director Sam Raimi, nearly 30 years after the film’s release, for his lack of “loyalty” towards her.
Per IndieWire, Stone’s criticism of Raimi came during the recent Torino Film Festival in Italy. During a panel discussion, she discussed her experience of working with Raimi on the film.
“In Sam Raimi’s case, I really liked his films,” Stone said during the panel. “I thought he was very intelligent and very funny, different from Marty [Scorsese] because he’s Italian, he has loyalty, he has that family feeling, and because of it Marty and I still have a relationship and because of it Marty and I still work together.”
“Sam was a kid and he doesn’t have loyalty, he doesn’t have family, he didn’t ever talk to me again, he didn’t thank me, he didn’t hire me again, he didn’t acknowledge the relationship,” Stone added. “Marty, because I worked so hard and because I admired him so much our relationship continues to today, there is depth there.”
Stone went on to claim that she’s the reason why Raimi went from ‘B’ to ‘A’ movies in his career: “The director Sam Raimi, who I had an opportunity to bring from ‘B’ movies to ‘A’ movies, and then he directed Spider-Man and became a very big a movie director.”
This is of course all nonsense, which is to expected from Stone. Raimi has been very loyal to the likes of Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless, as he keeps hiring them for various different projects of his. Stone’s comment about “family” is also nonsense since Raimi has been working with his brother since forever.
Raimi was pretty well-established prior to ‘Quick and the Dead,’ having helmed “Evil Dead,” “Evil Dead II,” “Army of Darkness” and “Darkman.” If anything, “The Quick and the Dead” was the worst film Raimi had made up to that point.
It’s rather strange that Stone would use Scorsese as an example as she’s worked with him only twice, right? “Casino” and a cameo in the Bob Dylan doc “Rolling Thunder Revue.” I couldn’t find any other project. It's not like she's part of his "go to" stable of actors.
There’s no doubt some pent up anger in Stone, who is 66 and isn’t getting many chewy roles these days in a Hollywood that tends to shun older actresses.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.