Sonam K Ahuja in conversation with Sharon Stone on fame, feminism and finding love online

Sometimes, all you need is a chat with a girl friend to make you feel alive again. And sometimes, all you need is a peak into a conversation between two powerful women talking about life, success, and just being a woman to make you feel inspired again. This one, between Sonam K Ahuja and Sharon Stone, has left us feeling just that. 

SKA: It’s so inspiring to see the longevity you’ve had in your career. It gives me hope that I’ll be working for many years to come.

SS: Well, we’re here to tell the stories of life. So as long as we’re living, we can tell stories about it.

SKA: Yeah, it’s amazing. As actors, we’re working during an incredible era of cinema. It’s powerful, and women are using their voices. We’re speaking about representation, equal pay, and sexual harassment in Hollywood and in India. How does this shift make you feel?

SS: We’re finally able to have a voice in many more ways. And I think it’s very important that we think about the things that we want to get done. There have been so many rules and restrictions put around women—now we need to lift those so that we can be seen and be equal. Without all the ideas of how women are supposed to behave.

SKA: I think women often conform to what we think people want from us, and it’s difficult to break out of it because there’s a lot of judgment and scrutiny. But looking at the work you’ve done—you’ve always broken stereotypes. You were ahead of your time. Can you talk about what drives this in you?

SS: My father was a feminist. His mother had money, and then when the family business fell apart, the money didn’t come back to her. It went to her nephew. And my father and his brother, who were very young then, suffered a lot because of that. My father thought it was absurd that women should be treated in a way that was different than men, and made a decision that that would never happen to me and my sister. And, you know, he raised us never to think of ourselves differently. I was raised to believe that I was not different, to stand up for myself, and to demand respect for myself. And so it was not really possible for me to imagine I should be treated as less. When men treat me as less, I just think that they’re very insecure. I feel they don’t have the courage and the strength to see me as their peers, and they need to see me as less in order to feel better. And I think I’m sorry they don’t have the confidence to be around me.

SKA: I understand what you mean. My father, very much like yours, is a feminist, and my parents are very progressive. They never treated me any differently from my brother. I got married recently, at 32, which is considered pretty late for an Indian woman.

SS: How is marriage?

SKA: It’s been two years since I’ve been shuffling between London and India, so it’s different. But it’s nice. Living with someone is hard and amazing at the same time.

SS: Exactly. Yeah. Because you have to figure out who picks the socks up off the floor.

SKA: My husband’s a stickler for cleanliness. So I’m the one who gets called out. But, speaking of relationships, I read you were on Bumble but had your account blocked because nobody could believe it was really you! How is the online dating world? I’ve never been on a dating app, so I’m really curious.

SS: It’s all new to me. People don’t really do a lot of dating the old-fashioned way.

SKA: Do you think social media is a tool that can be used for something incredible?

SS: I think social media is terribly isolating. And we can’t use that to be isolated. We have to still be together. We still have to see each other, and get together, and spend time together. Isn’t this supposed to be a tool for us to be together? Not a way for us to be isolated?
 

This article was originally published in 2020