9 Directors Who Really F**ked Up The First Day Of Filming

6. Paul Verhoeven Struggled To Direct A Nervous Sharon Stone - Basic Instinct

Beyond the obvious basics of keeping your cast and crew safe and, you know, actually turning up, any director worth their salt needs to know how to effectively work with cast members and get the desired performances out of them.

Veteran filmmaker Paul Verhoeven came curiously unstuck on the first day of filming for his hit erotic thriller Basic Instinct, then, when a nerve-wracked Sharon Stone gave a performance so "wooden" - in Verhoeven's own words - that there was talk of re-casting the part altogether.

The first day of shooting was deemed a wasteful disaster, but before he was done for the day, Verhoeven pulled Stone aside and gave her a pep talk about her ability to execute the performance.

Thankfully, Stone turned up to set the next day re-energised and confident, and the rest is history. But between Stone's crisis of confidence and Verhoeven's inability to get good work out of her, day one was a total wash.