Sharon Stone deploys Agent X

Sharon Stone knows and has worked with so many politicians, she already had a lot of her research done to play a vice president.

Still iconic for her “Basic Instinct” and Golden Globe Award winning “Casino” performances two decades later, the actress is tackling her first weekly television role since 1983’s “Bay City Blues.” She’s also an executive producer as TNT’s “Agent X” premieres with back-to-back episodes Sunday night, casting her as a newly installed second-incommand who secretly has a secret agent (Jeff Hephner, “Boss”) at her disposal … as have vice presidents before her, as her right-hand man (Gerald McRaney) explains.

“We’re just pounding to be good,” Stone says, adding that she’s been “a giant pain in the rear” in her producing capacity. She muses that she likes the show’s conceit that vice presidents covertly have been sending spies around the world to take care of dirty work: “Now we know why we like Joe Biden so much. He’s been kicking a.. under the cloak of darkness. I think it’s absolutely adorable. It’s fun and exciting, and it holds what we might say is a certain kind of lurid possibility.”

Jamey Sheridan (“Law & Order: Criminal Intent”), Mike Colter (“The Good Wife”) and — as the president — John Shea also star in “Agent X,” and for added evidence of the impressive casting around Stone, look no further than James Earl Jones (“my friend for 30 years,” Stone notes) as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Also noteworthy: Olga Fonda (“The Vampire Diaries”) as a Russian spy who engages in some entertaining court-and-spark with Hephner’s John Case.

“He’s so charming and attractive and interesting,” Stone says of Hephner, “and he’s such a good actor. He’s just got it all. We’ve just been so lucky (with the cast), and because we’re shooting in town (Los Angeles), we’ve been blessed with the most magnificent crew.”

Stone doesn’t deny she’d like “Agent X” to have the effect of encouraging “Americans to embrace women in positions of political power,” and she says with a hearty laugh, “I think it’s time, because it’s clear that the men have been killing us. If we would like to live a little longer and stop having so many wars … I love what the Pope said, that we are part of our environment. That’s a beautiful way to look at things, and I think women have an easier time addressing that. I also think women are a little more nurturing, by nature, and less inclined to make the first choice to kill.”

In many scenes of “Agent X,” the positioning and lighting (and hairstyle) make it hard to deny the resemblance of Stone’s widowed-by-mystery Natalie Maccabee to a certain current political candidate, and the star allows she’s “a big fan of Hillary Clinton. I don’t like the fact that she has to pander to be liked, when I think respect and admiration are bigger keys to a presidential candidate.”

Long associated with politicians through her global work with peacekeeping campaigns and the AIDS research foundation amfAR, Stone admits “Agent X” is a big step in recharging her career after dealing with a health crisis (a subarachnoid hemorrhage) and raising adopted children.

“I went around and did a bunch of different series,” she reflects. “I did ‘Will & Grace,’ I did ‘Huff,’ I won an Emmy for ‘The Practice’ — I tried out all these series to see what type would be good and appropriate for me. Then, I didn’t want to do it without a wonderful production team, and then I wanted to gather the best group of writers. It’s like picking cherries.”