Sharon Stone, a vocal supporter of 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, blasted American politics while attending the Torino Film Festival in Italy.
During a panel discussion, Stone, 66, was asked her thoughts on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which the award-winning actress said was “a big” question to think about.
“We have to stop and think about who we choose for government,” Stone said in a thinly veiled swipe at President-elect Trump. “And if, in fact, we are actually choosing our government or if the government is choosing itself.
“You know, Italy has seen fascism. Italy has seen these things, you guys. And you understand what happens. You have seen this before.
“My country is in the midst of adolescence. Adolescence is very arrogant. Adolescence thinks it knows everything. Adolescence is naive and ignorant and arrogant. And we are in our ignorant, arrogant adolescence.”
Stone, who picked up the Stella della Mole lifetime achievement award, added that Americans had never witnessed these events in the country before.
“So, Americans who don’t travel, who 80% don’t have a passport, who are uneducated, are in their extraordinary naïveté,” she said. “What I would say is that the only way that we can help with these issues is to help each other.”
She discouraged the notion that only “women should help women, because that’s the only way we have survived so far.”
Instead, Stone offered, “We must say that good men must help good men, and those good men must be very aware that a lot of their friends are not good men.
“We can’t continue to pretend that your friends are good men when they’re not good men. And you must be very clear minded and understand that your friends who are not good men are dangerous, violent men. And you have to keep them away from your daughters, your wives and your girlfriends, because this is the time when we can no longer look away, when bad men are bad.”
The “Basic Instinct” actress reflected, “I was watching a comedian the other night, and he said, ‘I asked a woman to dinner and she said yes. And it was such a brave thing for her to do because the only real thing, the No. 1 killer in the world today is men. For men, the No. 1 killer is heart disease.’
“The No. 1 killer for women is men. It is very important to remember that. It’s very important to remember that.”
Shortly after Stone’s appearance at the film festival, Alec Baldwin, who was in town to screen his ’90s classic, “The Hunt for Red October,” admitted it’s a “very important time for filmmaking” due to “a very difficult time in the United States.”
“Television news in the United States is a business. They have to make money,” Baldwin said at a press conference. “There’s a hole. There’s a vacuum. There is a gap, if you will, in information for Americans.
“Americans are very uninformed about reality — what’s really going on. With climate change, Ukraine, Israel … you name it. All the biggest topics in the world, Americans have an appetite for a little bit of information.
“That vacuum is filled by the film industry. Not just the independent film industry, not just the documentary film industry, which are very important around the world. But by narrative films, as well where the filmmakers and the buyers, the studios and the networks and the streamers are willing to go that way.
“I think right now is probably one of the most significant times in our history. Since film began, since the film experience began, it became an art form. It became a business, a huge business. Now is probably one of the most important times in our history for us to make films that will teach people what reality is around the world.”