Michael Douglas recalled that Sharon Stone once asked him to “go easy” during the filming of their intimate scenes in Basic Instinct after his facial stubble caused painful irritation in a sensitive area.
The actor, who starred alongside Stone in the 1992 erotic thriller, revisited the making of the film’s most provocative moments in his new memoir, One Helluva Ride.
According to the Daily Mail, Douglas, 82, wrote that he and Stone, 68, had agreed not to rely on body doubles for the explicit sequence, which reportedly took five days to complete.
“Sharon initially wore a patch over her crotch, a small concession to modesty,” Douglas wrote. Eventually, however, she decided to remove it. “Let’s stop pretending,” she reportedly said. “I’m nude, we all know it. Let’s go.”
Douglas emphasized that he and Stone did not have sex while recording the scene.
He explained that the choreography nevertheless required him to position his face very close to intimate parts of Stone’s body. In one moment, his character appeared to perform oral sex, and the action had to seem convincing on camera.
After several takes, Stone reportedly interrupted to tell him, “Please go easy. Your stubble is really scratching me!”
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Douglas said he examined the area and noticed that Stone’s upper thighs had become “completely red and chafed.” He recalled feeling “horrible” that the scene had caused her such discomfort.
The intense chemistry between the two stars led many moviegoers to wonder whether their connection extended beyond the screen after Basic Instinct arrived in theaters.
Douglas used his memoir to dispel those rumors, saying that his actual romantic involvement during the production was with another co-star, Jeanne Tripplehorn.
“The truth is, I fell very hard for Jeanne despite our nearly 20-year age difference,” wrote the Romancing the Stone star. “I was even prepared to officially leave my wife for Jeanne. I was crazy about her.”
At the time, Douglas was married to his first wife, Diandra Luker, 70, with whom he has a son, Cameron Douglas.
Looking back, he admitted that ending a marriage of nearly two decades and immediately entering another serious relationship would have been the “worst thing” he could have done for himself.
Douglas wrote that his relationship with Tripplehorn continued throughout production before the two eventually went their separate ways. Still, he said he would always regard her as “an amazing actress and a truly terrific woman” and feel fortunate to have known her.
Douglas and Luker later divorced. He married Catherine Zeta-Jones, 57, in 2000, while Tripplehorn, 63, wed fellow actor Leland Orser, 66, that same year.