AceShowbiz -

Sharon Stone bares her age-defying body for the September issue of Harper's Bazaar. The actress shows off her killer curves in a series of black-and-white nude pictures. "If I believed that sexy was trying to be who I was when I did #BasicInstinct, then we'd all be having a hard day today," she says.

She was cast as bisexual serial killer Catherine Trammel in "Basic Instinct" with Michael Douglas after posing nude for Playboy in 1990. "Everybody said I wasn't sexy and I couldn't get jobs because of it," she explains her calculated effort to show her sex appeal in the men's magazine.

Despite looking good at 57, Stone says no one asked her out anymore. "I've been getting more brazen with flirting, but I don't think men realize that I'm flirting. They just think, 'Oh, she's fun!' " she claims, asking her assistant, "Do people even realize I'm straight? I think they have questions about it because I have so many lesbian friends right now."

During the interview, Stone also recalls a 2001 stroke which caused her a brain aneurysm, "When I came to, the doctor was leaning over me. I said, 'Am I dying?' And he said, 'You're bleeding into your brain.' I said, 'I should call my mom,' and he said, 'You're right. You could lose the ability to speak soon.' "

It took her two years to recover and learn to walk and talk again. She says, "It almost feels like my entire DNA changed. My brain isn't sitting where it used to, my body type changed, and even my food allergies are different. I became more emotionally intelligent. I chose to work very hard to open up other parts of my mind."

"Now I'm stronger. And I can be abrasively direct. That scares people, but I think that's not my problem," she adds. "It's like, I have brain damage; you'll just have to deal with it."