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Iconic movie scenes live on forever in moviegoers’ memories and one of them is certainly Sharon Stone’s interrogation in BASIC INSTINCT.

Anyone who’s seen the Paul Verhoeven thriller, which opened March 20, 1992 via TriStar Pictures, knows why the scene is unforgettable. Stone uncrossing her legs wasn’t in Joe Eszterhas’s original script. He wrote it in just 10 days back in the ’80s, reportedly without a story outline and while listening to Rolling Stones music non-stop.  

The original title was “Love Hurts,” but Eszterhas changed that when inspiration struck just as he was about to ship it to his agent. He hurried home and wrote a new title page that said BASIC INSTINCT. Three days later, Carolco Pictures bought it in a bidding war for a then record setting $3M.

Stone’s eye-popping scene was actually Verhoeven’s idea, stemming from  a college party he’d been to years earlier where a woman had done that very thing to embarrass him. Eszterhas and then-producer Irwin Winkler’s first choice to direct was Milos Forman (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST). He read it while on vacation and came back ready to say yes — but by then they’d already gotten a yes from Verhoeven.

Eszterhas and Winkler, who produced ROCKY, had some rocky conflicts with Verhoeven over the script and decided to quit. Then Verhoeven brought in Gary Goldman, co-writer of Verhoeven’s 1990 hit TOTAL RECALL, starring Arnold Schwarzenger. Goldman was told to write new scenes that would make Michael Douglas’s San Francisco police detective character less of a wimp.

When Verhoeven realized his new plan wasn’t going anywhere good, he stunned Hollywood by admitting it publicly and then somehow getting Eszterhas to accept his apology and return. Alan Marshall, who had produced  MIDNIGHT EXPRESS with David Puttnam, succeeded Winkler.

Stone, who’d been in TOTAL RECALL, was Verhoeven’s first choice for crime novelist Catherine Trammell, who Douglas’s character thinks is a murderer. Stone wasn’t an A-List movie star yet, so she wasn’t offered the role until a long laundry list of big names had passed. Douglas wanted a top co-star and proposed Demi Moore or Michelle Pfeiffer — but no actress of their stature would commit to doing total nudity.  

In the end, Verhoeven got the scenes with Stone that he wanted. Stone has said she didn’t want to go panty-less for the interrogation scene, but Verhoeven had promised that her BLEEP wouldn’t be visible. Later, at a screening for cast & crew plus producers & agents, Stone saw her very same BLEEP onscreen.

After slapping Verhoeven’s face in the projection booth, she called her lawyer, who said she could stop the movie’s release. Stone, however,  ultimately decided the scene was right for her character and let it stay in the movie, which became a huge hit. Produced for $49M, it did $352.9M worldwide.