Stone starred opposite Billy Baldwin in the erotic thriller, which was savaged by critics upon its 1993 release.

Sharon Stone says ‘terrible’ Sliver dialogue about vibrators was ‘clearly written by a man without enough to do’

Stone starred opposite Billy Baldwin in the erotic thriller, which was savaged by critics upon its 1993 release.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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September 17, 2026 7:14 p.m. ET

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Sharon Stone in ‘Sliver’. Credit:

- Sharon Stone is calling out the “terrible” dialogue in her 1993 film *Sliver*.

- *Silver *was written by the infamous Joe Eszterhas, the ’90s hotshot whose $3 million payday for writing *Basic Instinct *(also starring Stone) broke a contemporary record.

- The actress slammed the film’s script as rife with “terrible dialogue... clearly written by a man without enough to do.”

Sharon Stone isn’t afraid of her critics. Sometimes, she even agrees with them.

One such case is the 1993 erotic thriller *Sliver*, which starred Stone and Billy Baldwin as a book editor and a video game designer drawn into a dangerously passionate game of cat and mouse. The film may have grossed over triple its budget, but it was nearly universally savaged by critics upon its release.

In a recent look back at her filmography for *Variety*, Stone watched a clip from the film, in which her Carly Norris tells coworker Judy Marks (Colleen Camp) that she’s “been spending too much time with your vibrator.”

Stone was not amused.

Billy Baldwin and Sharon Stone in ‘Sliver’.

Suzanne Tenner/Paramount

Before watching the clip, simply reading the line aloud, the Oscar nominee couldn’t “remember saying that or thinking that.” She guessed it may have come from 1998’s Michael Crichton adaptation, *Sphere*.

But she quickly got on the right track. “No, not *Sphere*. The one, the name of the building. Oh! *Sliver*... I made a rule that no one was allowed to even say that word for years. And that’s why, because, what terrible dialogue. Clearly written by a man without enough to do.”

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*Sliver *was the highly anticipated follow-up to *Basic Instinct*, the controversial hit that made the career of both its star (Stone) and screenwriter (Joe Eszterhas) the year before. Stone had already attracted a good deal of notice for her turns in films like *Total Recall *and *Year of the Gun*, and Eszterhas had been steadily working in Hollywood since the late 1970s, breaking out by co-writing the screenplay for 1983’s *Flashdance*.

His gonzo script for Paul Verhoeven’s *Basic Instinct *became the stuff of Hollywood legend, however, when it sold for the then-record sum of $3 million. And Stone’s fearless performance as the all-powerful Catherine Tramell solidified her as one of Hollywood’s most promising stars on the rise.

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The brutal response to *Sliver *threatened to ruin it all for them both. A contemporary *Variety** *review slammed the film directed by *Clear and Present Danger *helmer Phillip Noyce as “all flash and no sizzle — an uninspired thriller that simply changes gender on the *Basic Instinct* formula.” In the *Los Angeles Times*, Peter Rainer snarked that “casting Stone as a lovelorn wastrel waiting to be ravaged makes about as much sense as casting Madonna as Emily Dickinson.”

But Stone’s career survived. She’d go on to play one of the defining roles of her career, the tempestuous Ginger McKenna in Martin Scorsese’s *Casino*, just two years later. The performance would earn Stone the only Oscar nomination of her career thus far.

You can watch Stone’s full interview with *Variety *above.

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