In honor of Meryl Streep‘s birthday (or rather, in dishonor), Twitter users decided to recirculate a recent Sharon Stone interview inciting beef with the legendary actress. The profile, which was published to Everything Zoomer in late May, was meant to promote Stone’s new memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice — but Stone didn’t hesitate to drop some shady comments towards fellow actress Streep in the piece. During the interview, the reporter asked about working with Streep on The Laundromat in an attempt to “ease Stone’s agitation,” but, in fact, did quite the opposite.
In her memoir, Stone writes about Hollywood and society pitting women against one another: “It was put to us that there could only be one,” Stone shared. As the pair approached the subject, the reporter mistakenly asked about “finally” getting to work with Streep.
“I like the way you phrase that, that I finally got to work with Meryl Streep,” Stone said. “You didn’t say, ‘Meryl finally got to work with Sharon Stone.’ Or we finally got to work together.”
The reporter attempted to interject, but Stone continued to fire back against the question: “Because that’s the way her life went, she got built up to be, ‘Everyone wants to work with Meryl,’” Stone said. “I wonder if she likes that?”
“The way you structured the question is very much the answer to the question,” Stone says. “The business was set up that we should all envy and admire Meryl because only Meryl got to be the good one. And everyone should compete against Meryl. I think Meryl is an amazingly wonderful woman and actress. But in my opinion, quite frankly, there are other actresses equally as talented as Meryl Streep. The whole Meryl Streep iconography is part of what Hollywood does to women.”
Stone went on to list off a few actresses who are just as good as Streep, saying Viola Davis is “every bit the actress Meryl Streep is,” naming Emma Thompson, Judy Davis, Olivia Colman. “Kate Winslet, for f***’s sake,” she concluded. Stone went on to celebrate herself as an actress in comparison to Streep.
“I’m a much better villain than Meryl,” Stone said, “and I’m sure she’d say so. Meryl was not gonna be good in Basic Instinct or in Casino. I would be better. And I know it. And she knows it. But we’re all set up to think that only Meryl is so amazing that when you say her name it must have been amazing for me to work with her.”
The actress connected the conversation back to her original line of thought, comparing women in the acting industry to the operations of a grocery store.
“We’re all labelled the Queen of Something,” Stone said. “I’m the Queen of Smut! She’s the Queen of That! We all have to sit in our assigned seats. Are you kidding me? If we worked in a supermarket, she can’t always be the No. 1 checkout girl. We’re all doing our jobs. Everybody gets to get better, and everybody gets to sometimes have that not great a day. Even … Meryl.”
After her rant about Streep and the state of the industry, Stone continued discussing the actress in relation to the #MeToo movement. Streep has been criticized in the past for knowing about Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual assault.
“Until there are real laws, #MeToo was just the opening sentence. I’m sure Meryl has a story,” Stone began. “But I’m also sure if Meryl told you her story, she wouldn’t be being Meryl, and she wouldn’t be getting those jobs. Meryl can’t be the envelope pusher. Because then she wouldn’t get the jobs. Meryl’s a smoother. That’s what she does.”
The interview resurfaced today when one Twitter user sent out a screencap from the interview, tweeting, “sharon stone out there ending her own career…” Folks were quick to support Stone’s statements, with multiple users tweeting that “Stone is right and she should say it.”
Sharon Stone is right and she should say it. Streep is overrated and has barely done any even okay work in over a decade. https://t.co/ieqDdXwrfB
— ✨ kyle 中和 turner ✨ (@TyleKurner) June 22, 2021
Others criticized Stone, though, referencing Streep’s performance as the villain of The Devil Wears Prada and tearing into her comments for being hypocritical.
Sharon Stone: why are we pitted against Meryl Streep? Do you think she likes that? We need to stop pitting women against each other
Also Sharon Stone: here’s a list of things I do better than MERYL ever could & here’s a list of actors that are as good if not better than MERYL 🥴
— holly 🥴 (@hollylottie88) June 22, 2021
Sharon Stone should’ve quit talking after the first thing she said about what Hollywood does to women because the rest of it just makes her sound envious and detracts from her very valid point.
It sounds like they have beef. Or maybe Sharon Stone has beef and Meryl is all “Who?”
— Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) June 22, 2021
Even though the original tweet cited that Stone was “ending her own career,” the actress made her stance more than clear in the profile.
“I don’t have an agent or manager or lawyer,” Stone concluded. “If a director wants me, they’ll find me. If you want to hire me, you have to want me. At 63, you’ve seen what I can do. I don’t want to be on a list or a name to help finance a project. I want to work because I’m the best person for a job.”
