Kaley Cuoco Reveals Sharon Stone Slapped Her Multiple Times During The Flight Attendant Season 2 Filming

Kaley Cuoco is getting set to drop Season 2 of her hit Emmy-winning show The Flight Attendant on HBO Max. One of the most exciting aspects of The Flight Attendant Season 2 is no doubt the casting of Sharon Stone as the mother of Cuoco’s protagonist character, Cassie Bowden. TV fans everywhere are psyched to see Cuoco and Stone go at it onscreen – and from the sound of things, they will indeed do just that. 

Move over Will Smith and Chris Rock: According to Kaley Cuoco, Sharon Stone got in multiple slaps to her face while filming The Flight Attendant Season 2! 

Now just for context: The Flight Attendant Season 1 established just how tragically dysfunctional Cassie Bowden’s family life really was. Her father and his alcoholism (and Cassie’s inheritance of said alcoholism) were the major character arc focuses of Season 1, with Cassie’s relationship with her estranged mother largely kept off the table. Clearly, Season 2 will see Cassie having to work through her mommy issues in a much more dynamic way – so the slaps from Sharon Stone make sense as part of the onscreen performance. 

WATCH: The Flight Attendant Season 2 Trailer

Here’s is how Kaley Cuoco explains catching them hands from Sharon Stone in The Flight Attendant Season 2: 

“We just knew we wanted to get someone super special,” Cuoco explained to Jimmy Kimmel, before revealing how wild it got on set with Stone: “We had these very intense scenes – I think one of our scenes was like 10 minutes long, and it’s very emotional – there’s a lot of crying and a lot of this and that. And before we started the scene, she sat me down and said ‘Hey, how do you feel about me touching you in this scene?’ And I said ‘Whatever you want to do Sharon, you are Sharon Stone: you do what you want to do – I’m just so happy you’re here.’ And she goes ‘Great.’ 

So we do the take – and it’s this very long, emotional scene – and at the end of the scene she’s supposed to come up and say something very serious to me and walk out. She was supposed to say ‘I like you but I don’t love you very much.’ That’s what she’s supposed to say. So she says this line to me and she grabs my face, and she whacks me! [audience gasps] I know! 

First of all the reaction was an about as real as you can get, and my cameraman was right here [makes camera lens with hands] and he goes [imitates shocked cameraman] And I have like snot coming out and I’m crying, I’m like literally shaking, and they’re like ‘Cut!’ And no one makes a sound, no one knows ‘Is Kaley happy? Did she tell Sharon to slap here?’ So Sharon comes back and she goes, ‘Oh my god I love you, I didn’t mean to do that it just felt right for the scene.’ I said ‘That was… incredible! Like woah, like yeah!’ So I’m like ‘I just got bitch-slapped by Sharon Stone!’ 

So I walk out and the producers come up to me and go ‘That was unbelievable! But should we tell her we got it, we don’t need another take, like we got it.’ I said ‘Listen, I’m going to bet money that woman is not going to slap me again. She’s not going to slap me agian! We got the money take! That’s her Emmy win right there.’ So they’re like ‘So you don’t want us to say anything?’ I’m like ‘No, do not tell Sharon Stone not to slap me. She’s not going to do it again.’ 

So we do another take. I’m crying. She comes up to me… and she wails on me again. [Laughs and screams] And they get another incredibly real reaction because I just got slapped a second time. She [Sharon] comes back and she’s like ‘I’m so sorry it just felt right for the take!’ 

And now everyone’s like not looking; they’re unsure like ‘Did they talk about this?’ So I walk outside again – it’s literally like Groundhog Day – I walk outside again and I’m kind of holding my face and the team comes out like ‘We should say something’ but I’m like ‘Sharon Stone isn’t going to slap me a third time. There’s no way! We got it!” 

…We do the take again. She gets right in there. And I’m literally like looking at her like [eyes suspiciously] and I’m kind of going like this [leans back], and I’m like ‘Just get in there Kaley, she’s not gonna slap you again, it’s okay! It’s okay!’ I get in there: she slaps me again. Three times I got slapped! [audience applauds… for some reason]. [The camera] Wasn’t even on me in the third take! So now I need to ice, and I walk out and she comes in and she’s like ‘Hey it was on my face,’ and I’m like ‘I understand, I understand – can we wrap though? Because I think I’m ready to go.’”

Cuoco ends the anecdote by saying she tells the story now with “love” and that filming The Flight Attendant Season 2 was “insane.” She also calls taking three slaps from Sharon Stone “one of the best stories I have ever had.” That said, when it came time to do the editing on Season 2, Cuoco made sure that slap she endured (and endured, and endured again) actually made it into the finished show. 

You can catch Sharon Stone slapping Kaley Cuoco (for real) in The Flight Attendant Season 2 Episode 6. The new season premieres on HBO Max on April 21st.