She Gathers No Moss

Since it was sold for a record $3 million, Joe Eszterhas’ screenplay for “Basic Instinct” has generated plenty of talk for its sexual heat, nude scenes and lesbian subplot.

Eszterhas and producer Irwin Winkler left the project over director Paul Verhoeven’s decision to make the erotic thriller--about a cop who gets involved with a mysterious woman--even more sexually explicit.

So how nervous is Sharon Stone about playing the female lead, opposite Michael Douglas?

Not very, she tells us.

“I know the (more sensitive) scenes will be handled with total integrity,” she says. “What this script really does is reveal its characters tremendously on a psychological level.”

Stone, who has posed for Playboy, says of her character: “She’s so complex . . . the nudity is not the role’s greatest demand.”

To shoot in mid-April for Tri-Star and Carolco Pictures, the film is her second for Verhoeven, following “Total Recall” (she was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s conniving wife).

She tested for “Basic Instinct” five months ago. Last month, she was asked to test again--with Douglas--and landed the part.

Stone will also be seen opposite Andrew McCarthy in the John Frankenheimer-directed thriller “The Year of the Gun,” due later this year from Columbia. And she co-stars in Paramount’s upcoming romantic comedy “He Said, She Said” and the indie feature “Where Sleeping Dogs Lie.”

“Yes, I’ve been busy,” says Stone, who is 32 and single. “I don’t have a personal life.”

But: “My phone is ringing off the hook since getting ‘Basic Instinct.’ I am sooooo darned lucky.”