Stone backs Collymore for Hollywood stardom
Actress Sharon Stone has tipped former footballer Stan Collymore as a Hollywood star in the making.
Collymore makes his movie debut with her in the sequel to Basic Instinct.
The shamed star is trying his hand at an acting career after a troubled few years.
The opening scenes of Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction show Stone and Collymore in a liaison which ends with their car plunging into the River Thames.
The pair did their own stunts – which almost ended in disaster when Stone’s stiletto heel became caught in the floor as she struggled to escape from the submerged car.
Speaking at a press conference to launch the film, Stone, 48, said: “Working with Stan was so extraordinary. He is the loveliest, most chivalrous, most charming and most professional person.
"And because of that, when this incident happened I felt really confident that we would get out of it.
“I’ve done a lot of stunts in movies and I have never done anything that was as difficult or demanding as this sequence.
“It was physically very difficult to be underwater for so long and it’s also really daunting to have that drowning effect over and over again, it’s psychologically very oppressive.
“You can’t do that unless you are partnering someone you really trust. We built a really solid bond of trust.
“We were each other’s life support to make that scene work and to literally survive what was a really dangerous stunt. There’s no one I would have felt safer with than Stan.”
Stone turned up to the press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in central London wearing a white fur coat, knee-high leather boots – and nothing else.
Basic Instinct 2 sees Stone reprise her role as bisexual killer Catherine Tramell 14 years after the original.
Set in London, it stars British actor David Morrissey as a psychiatrist hired to assess Tramell’s mental state.
The film promises even more nudity and “kinky stuff” than the first film.
The actress said the movie proves women over 40 can be sexy.
Stone, recently signed as the face of Dior skincare, said: “I think it’s so different in Europe where you have only to walk down the street and remember you’re a woman.
“In America we tend to erase women after 40, and it’s a period when women become their most interesting. They are sexual in a different and alluring way.
“This film expresses that sexual allure in an unabashed and provocative way, in a way that is gritty and dangerous and quite presumptive.”
Of her new modelling contract she said: “I think it’s really extraordinary they have hired someone in their middle-40s to represent skincare.
“Women are being recognised and noted and seen as sexually viable. I feel incredibly complimented and grateful, not just for myself but for other woman, that this page has been turned.”
Stone described Morrissey as “gorgeous and witty”.
Asked why she had chosen him as her co-star, she replied: “Jesus, look at him! I knew he was the one.”
Morrissey, 41, best known for TV dramas The Deal and State of Play, said he was undaunted by the sex scenes in the film.
“I think it would have been a bit weird of me to go for Basic Instinct 2 and think, what, you want me to take my clothes off?” he said.
“The sex scenes tell a story. The film has a cracking script.”
The world premiere takes place tonight in Leicester Square.
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