Former SNL cast members Dana Carvey and David Spade welcomed actress and 1992 SNL host Sharon Stone onto their Fly on the Wall podcast Wednesday, where the trio discussed a wide variety of topics, including Stone’s controversial episode as host.
Stone, whose hit Basic Instinct had recently been released in theaters, remembered being “terrified” during the April 1992 SNL live airing. And that was even before protestors stormed the stage seconds before her opening monologue, resulting in several arrests.
“I came out to do the monologue live, which is super scary … and people stormed the stage, saying they were going to kill me during the opening monologue,” recalled Stone. “The police and security who were in there froze, because they had never seen anything like that happen.”
Stone remarked that Lorne Michaels “personally saved my life” when the protestors stormed the stage.
“Lorne himself started beating these people up and pulling them back from the stage,” Stone recalled. “All of these people were getting beat up and handcuffed right in front of me, and this was happening at my feet while I was delivering the opening monologue.”
Why were these people mad at Stone?
“It was the beginning of my work as an AIDS activist, and these people didn’t understand what was really happening and they didn’t know if amfAR [Foundation for AIDS Research] could be trusted or if we were against gay people … they didn’t really know,” Stone responded. “Instead of waiting for an informative intelligent conversation, they just decided, ‘well, we’ll just kill her.'”
“After that, I blacked out for like half of the show.”
The trio also discussed the Airport Security sketch, in which Stone played a woman who gets stopped by airport security and asked to remove one item of clothing at a time. Carvey appeared in the sketch as an Indian security guard.
“I want to apologize publicly for the security check sketch where I played an Indian man and we’re convincing Sharon, her character, or whatever—to take her clothes off to go through the security thing,” said Carvey said.
“So offensive,” Spade added, genuinely.
“It’s so ‘1992.’ It’s from another era,” said Carvey.
Stone was a good sport about it then, and remains a good sport about it today.
“I know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony. And I think that we were all committing misdemeanors [back then] because we didn’t think there was something wrong then,” said Stone. “We didn’t have this sense. I had much bigger problems than that. That was funny to me, I didn’t care. I was fine being the butt of the joke.”
Stone continued, “Now we’re in such a weird and precious time. People have spent too much time alone. People don’t know how to be funny and intimate and any of these things with each other. Everyone is so afraid and they’re putting up such barriers around everything that people can’t be normal with each other anymore. It’s lost all sense of reason.”
Carvey added, “Watching it [the sketch], comedy needs a straight person and you were perfect in it. You were completely sincere and you made us funny.”
