BBC 100 Women: Sharon Stone's emotional message to her ...

After Basic Instinct, Stone went on to win a Golden Globe and receive an Oscar nomination for best actress in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino.

I am interviewing her in Turin in Italy, after the city’s film museum honoured her with a Stella della Mole Award for her lifetime’s achievement in film.

As well as her charity work, Stone has also been outspoken on politics, including her opposition to US President-elect Donald Trump. She posted a picture of herself in a “Mrs President” top on election day in support of Kamala Harris.

“I see the world a little bit differently than a lot of my country. That doesn't mean I'm not a patriot,” she says.

But she says she will “respect the office of the president… because that is what a democracy does”.

Now, however, she has begun a new chapter as a successful painter, exhibiting and selling her art around the world.

Her new focus on painting began during the pandemic. She works in a studio next to her home in Los Angeles.

Her artworks are bold and impressionistic, and - in her own words - “very large”. This, she explains, is partly because she was inspired by an aunt who painted murals on the walls of her house - and partly because she can’t see well enough to paint small.

She says she doesn’t envisage what the final creation will look like as she paints. “I'm just in it so deeply,” she says. “It's so immersive. It's just wonderful.”