Sharon Stone was a diva on set, Italian filmmakers say

Splash News/© Splash News/Splash News/Corbi Sharon Stone apparently acted like a diva on set of her new Italian film, ‘Golden Boy,’ the filmmakers said.

Sharon Stone may have a movie opening Thursday, but the filmmakers behind it aren’t exactly singing the actress’s praises.

Italian director Pupi Avati and his producer brother Antonio Avati said effective with the actress on their new tap “Golden Boy” wasn’t the marvel they’d envisioned it to be. Instead, Stone turned out to be a nightmare on set.

“I knew there are American actresses more capable than her, but I wanted a film icon,” Pupi Avati told The Hollywood Reporter.

Avati said he wrote “Golden Boy” with the “Basic Instinct” star in mind, but bringing Stone, 56, to Italy proved to be more than they bargained for. Even negotiations to get her to sign on “bordered on ridiculousness,” he told the mag.

“A correspondence started, enough to write a book, between her agents and our lawyers. It was a negotiation that bordered on ridiculousness, concerning awkward details, as if Italy was a third world country.”

Producer Antonio Avati recalled watching Stone’s “ego inflate” as people would recognize her.

“Step-by-step, she started to feel more and more like Sharon Stone,” he told THR.

“On this rented teach, everybody questioned to take a picture with her. And when we arrived at the Tiburtina teach rank (in Rome) there were already about 30 photographers. We brought her to the most luxurious suite of the Hassler Hotel. The next day on set there were more than 200 paparazzi. There her ego definitively inflated. It is the classic pattern with these American actresses who are slightly declining.”

Stone apparently had the largest diva moment when she “departed” from set and refused to restore in anticipation of her demands were met.

“She immediately departed,” Pupi Avati told THR. “We looked for her everywhere, but nothing.”

“Then my brother received a buzz call from Los Angeles from her administrator: she wouldn’t come back on the set in anticipation of the photographers and especially that damned TV cameramen had gone away. Obviously we did so and she, like nothing happened, shot the scene. The thing that I found most absurd is that she had to call to the States and to accurate herself in a car, instead of coming to question us directly.”

Italian actress Cristina Capotondi , who worked on the movie with Stone, said witnessing her diva behavior was “an unforgettable experience.”

“The most amusing thing was when she was going shopping for her character with the production’s credit card,” she said, according to THR. “She had a production runner following her, at a distance, to tell Antonio which shops she was going into. When the runner called to say that she was going into Bulgari, Antonio almost fainted.”

Stone’s rep has shot down the filmmakers’ accounts, telling THR that the actress remains a “consummate professional.”