Saturday Night Live musical guests sometimes have other artists to join them onstage, but nobody could've predicted that Sam Smith's special guest for their performance of "Gloria" last weekend would be iconic actress Sharon Stone. So how'd that happen? Turns out all Sam had to do was ask.
Stone tells Variety that she first met Sam in 2019 through singer/songwriter Rufus Wainright at the premiere of the Judy Garland biopic Judy. She explains, "Sam DM’ed me, maybe a month ago, and said, 'I know it’s really a long shot, but would you like to do this?'"
At that exact moment, Stone recalls, she was listening to "Sam Smith Radio" on a streaming service and told them, "Well, I think the universe has already decided this." She added that she'd be "absolutely ecstatic" to do it because she thinks Sam is the "most astounding performer."
Stone then had a special dress made, and Sam showed her sketches of the stage setup, which had her lying on a box surrounded by a choir dressed in sequined hooded robes, with Sam in the middle dressed in gold.
During the performance, Stone didn't say anything: She just looked straight up, then sat up and looked off into the distance with a strange expression on her face.
"Sam did not ask for anything from me — just asked me if I would do it and trusted me," she explains. "We just innately understand each other, at an almost intimate level."
"We have no judgment of each other; we have only affirmative feelings about each other as an artist," she adds. "It’s not a competitive sport, but we want each other to bring our best game, and in order to do that, it’s like, 'Just go for it, girl.'”
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