Pupi Avati, an Italian filmmaker, knew he wanted Sharon Stone in his picture “Golden Boy.” But h e had no idea how tough it would be to work with her, he told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview on Friday.

Avati was overjoyed when Stone agreed to star in the picture, until her agent contacted him with a long list of requests.

“It was a negotiation that bordered on ridiculousness, concerning embarrassing details, as if Italy was a third world country. By the way, we do have electricity in Italy,” he said.

Apart from that, the filmmaker was irritated by Stone’s unwillingness to film an intimate sequence in front of a television crew. She apparently departed the set unannounced after seeing a television crew and photographers photographing a scenario.

“Then my brother received a phone call from Los Angeles from her manager. She wouldn’t come back on the set until the photographers and especially that damned TV cameramen had gone away. Obviously we did so and she, like nothing happened, shot the scene.

“The thing that I found most absurd is that she had to call to the States and to close herself in a car, instead of coming to ask us directly,” Avati added.

In an email to HuffPost Entertainment, a spokesman for Stone said, “None of this is true. Ms. Stone is the consummate professional.”

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time Stone has been described as a tough collaborator.

Nikki Finke, the site’s previous editor-in-chief, lambasted the actress for her on-set conduct in a scathing 2010 editorial for Deadline.com.