When Sharon Stone walked up on stage inside the Sofitel hotel Friday night to accept a career achievement honor during the Astra Awards, she immediately turned her attention to “the kids” who questioned who she was and why she was at their table.
“Someone came over and said, ‘Who are you and why are you sitting here?’” the veteran star explained before quoting herself from the clips reel that just played. “As she said, ‘Fuck you.’”
Though she said it with a smile, that should give you an idea of how the next nine minutes of Stone’s acceptance speech went. It was a “fuck”-filled address that covered everything from Basic Instinct to Taylor Swift and seemed designed to inspire actors and artists to go after their dreams, be a “decent person” and get to work.
“Fame without awareness, success without purpose is pointless,” Stone said at the top of her remarks after calling out her tablemates. “It’s really interesting because I wasn’t the first person they offered Basic Instinct to but I was the person who got her manager to break into the office and get her the script. And I was the person who was prepared because I had that script for eight months and I was the person who got her manager to call every single fucking day because I wanted that part. And when you want something as an artist, you should go and get it because you know what’s meant for you and you know where you can fit and where you can make a change with your art.”
Then Stone turned her attention to the present day to offer a rather pointed message about activism.
“There’s a lot of talk right now about what we think is right and what we think is wrong and how we feel about everything and how upsetting all these things can be. Fuck off. All of your hot air doesn’t mean anything, but all of your gifts and all of your opportunities mean everything. Shut the front door and get to work. Do something with what you have. Use your talent and become a purpose. The only thing that matters in this life is what you do with what you’ve got.”
Stone, winner of the Timeless Award. Other honorees at the event included Timothee Chalamet, Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Wagner Moura, Mark Hamill, Park Chan-wook, Dylan O’Brien, Elle Fanning, Zoey Deutch, Ariana Grande, Adam Sandler, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Madigan, Stellan Skarsgård, Jessie Buckley and more.
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Stone dedicated a chunk of her remarks to retelling the story of how she got out of the “port town in northwestern Pennsylvania” where she grew up, a place she described as being filled with drugs, hookers and lots of Amish residents.
“I went on to demonstrate what different lives could look like and what different lives could feel like because I felt a lot growing up in that environment,” she said of her career as an actress. “I felt a lot about the Amish people that I grew up with, the people who taught me how to raise a house, raise the sides, and then have a party when we put the roof on.”
Stone then made a big statement — more of a direct suggestion, actually — about actors who make more money than the people they work with on sets.
“Everybody thinks that what we do is all sunglasses and flashbulbs but it isn’t. It’s a lot of seasons of strikes and illnesses and no jobs and how the fuck am I going to pay my bills? That’s what it really is to be an artist. What is it to be timeless? It is not a bunch of people pushing buttons on social media. It isn’t. It is when you are on the road and you meet people and you are kind to them and you see them and you talk to them. It is when you make more money than your crew and you realize that you should not be eating off the craft service table because you are not carrying cable. You are not hauling electric. You are not dragging shit through the rain and snow. What you should be doing is be putting better food on that craft service table because you make more money.”
She said stars should clean up their trailers, hang up their clothes and “put your fucking trash out at the end of the day.” And then on their days off, they should go to the hospital and “do something decent.” Then came the Swift mention.
“You know why you like Taylor Swift? Because she’s decent. Be decent. That is what it means to be timeless. Be a decent person.”
She Stone’s full Astra Awards speech below.