Leonardo DiCaprio has discussed how important Sharon Stone has been to the progression of his career. On her memoir, “The Beauty of Living Twice,” she revealed that she was pivotal in acquiring DiCaprio and Russell Crowe film “The Quick and the Dead.”

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DiCaprio shared his opinion on the matter and shared he’d thanked her many times. "I've thanked her many times,"he said to E! News. "I don't know if I sent her an actual, physical thank you gift, but I cannot thank her enough. She said, ‘These are the two actors I want to work with.’ It's incredible. She's been a huge champion of cinema and giving other actors opportunities, so I'm very thankful."

DiCaprio had recently come off of his critically acclaimed performance of “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” which came out when he was 19 years old. It made for his first Academy Award nomination.

Stone wrote in her memoir that she offered to pay for DiCaprio and Crowe’s salary in order to work with them. "This kid named Leonardo DiCaprio was the only one who nailed the audition, in my opinion: he was the only one who came in and cried, begging his father to love him as he died in the scene," she wrote in the book, per Insider. "The studio said if I wanted him so much, I could pay him out of my own salary. So I did."

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The decision helped Sharon Stone become a producer

Stone wrote in her memoir that standing up to the studio was pivotal for her career and development as a professional. “Getting a producer credit as an actress is often thought of in my business as a ‘vanity deal,’ meaning they pay you for the job but shut the fuck up and stay out of the way,” she wrote in her memoir.

“I won’t accept a vanity deal and let them know that upfront. This is illegal, I say, and I like to work within the law. That gets a lot of silence and not a lot of joy on the other end.”