Why These Stars Decided To Go Full Frontal In Hollywood
Actors sometimes have to go to great lengths to embody their characters and make their movie or TV show as believable as possible. As many actors have found out over the years, those lengths can involve not just baring their souls, but their bodies, too. While there are some examples of full-frontal nudity being incorporated tastefully in films and television, there are also plenty of instances of it being used simply to attract more viewers. This presents an ethical dilemma for actors.
Much like how there's a lot that goes into filming a nude scene — such as contractual logistics, closed set protocols, intimacy coordinators, and much more — there's a lot for the actor to think about. Does nudity serve the story? Will it be handled sensitively? What will the repercussions be for the actor's career and personal life? After all, there are plenty of actors who regret filming love scenes. Read on to find out why these Hollywood actors decided to go full frontal on camera.
Jennifer Lawrence - Red Sparrow (2018)
In 2014, Jennifer Lawrence and several other actors found out that some of their private images — many of which contained nudity — had been stolen and leaked online. This gross breach of privacy understandably left many of the people involved shaken. "My trauma will exist forever," Lawrence told Vanity Fair. This was the main reason Lawrence was initially hesitant to star in "Red Sparrow," which revolves around the weaponization of sex in Russian espionage. While the film's script appealed to Lawrence, the nudity it demanded made her reconsider. However, in the end, she decided the role was an opportunity to take control of the situation.
"I realized there's a difference between consent and not," Lawrence said in a "60 Minutes" interview. "I showed up for the first day and I did it. And I felt empowered. I feel like something that was taken from me I got back and am using in my art." Additionally, the A-lister was assured that director Francis Lawrence — who she had worked with on three "Hunger Games" movies – would handle the nudity tastefully. "I knew that if there was anybody who could make this material that's really salacious and daring tasteful, it's Francis," Lawrence told the Los Angeles Times.
Emma Thompson - Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)
Emma Thompson was 62 when she went full frontal in "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande," and it wasn't an easy decision for the Brit, given her struggles with body image. One scene in the film entails her character (a teacher who hires a male escort) disrobing in front of a mirror. This was particularly hard to shoot, as Thompson finds it difficult to look in a mirror even when fully clothed. "I don't look in the mirror and if I do, I look away," the Oscar winner told Lorraine Kelly on her ITV show "Lorraine" (via SheKnows). "We're brainwashed from very early on to not see something that we can't accept."
Along with the sex-positive nature of the film, what helped Thompson feel comfortable with the nudity was the connection she was able to form with co-star Daryl McCormack and director Sophie Hyde. "Sophie, Daryl, and I rehearsed entirely nude and talked about our bodies, talked about our relationship with our bodies, drew them, discussed the things that we find difficult about [them], things we like about them, described one another's bodies," Thompson told Cinema Café. The actor further emphasized how the body standards imposed upon women have become increasingly unrealistic over the years. "Nothing has changed in the dreadful demands made upon women in the real-world but also in acting," she added.
Tom Cruise - All the Right Moves (1983)
In his decades-long career as a leading man, Tom Cruise has developed a reputation for his intense commitment to the roles he takes on, but he's also known for being generous with his colleagues. While the "Mission: Impossible" star has scaled the world's tallest building, hung to the side of a moving plane, and ridden a motorcycle off a cliff (to name just a few of Cruise's most crazy stunts), he has humble beginnings in Hollywood. 1983 was a breakout year for him, with films like "The Outsiders," "Losin' It," and "Risky Business" putting him on the map. What few people remember is that in "All the Right Moves," his final film of 1983, Tom Cruise went full frontal.
While it's only for a split second, Cruise bares all in this football drama. What's interesting about this scene is that he wasn't asked to get naked — he did so in solidarity with co-star Lea Thompson, who would later become known for the "Back to the Future" films. Thompson revealed to Closer Weekly how she was hesitant about doing multiple nude scenes for the film. "[Producers] wanted me to show my breasts twice in the script," she said. "Tom managed to talk them out of one of the scenes, and in the second, he said, 'Well, if she has to be naked, I'll be naked, too.' That's pretty badass! I've always been grateful to him for standing up to the producers."
Margot Robbie - The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
2013's "The Wolf of Wall Street" pulls no punches when it comes to showing the debauchery that protagonist Jordan Belfort (the real-life former stock broker played here by Leonardo DiCaprio) reveled in: There's drug use, profanity, and nudity galore. The nudity was initially a concern for Margot Robbie, who was relatively unknown at the time. However, with acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese helming the movie, she decided to go for it. "My manager told me, 'If there's ever going to be a time for nudity, this is the director you do it with,'" Robbie told The Telegraph. While Robbie has a couple of unclothed scenes in the film, the most prominent one involves her character seducing Belfort by stepping out of her bedroom completely naked.
The Australian actor understood the purpose of the now famous scene, saying, "If Marty [Martin Scorsese] had made Jordan's lifestyle look horrible from the beginning, then you'd be like, 'Well, why's he doing it?'" Scorsese actually gave Robbie the option of not doing the scene nude, but she insisted on going full frontal. "The whole point of Naomi is that her body is her only form of currency in this world," Robbie reasoned. "So when Marty was trying to help me out, and said in the scene where she seduces Jordan perhaps I could have a robe on, I said she wouldn't. She has to be naked. She's laying her cards on the table."
Salma Hayek - Frida (2002)
2002's "Frida," a biopic about the life of famed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, propelled Salma Hayek to mainstream status in Hollywood with an Oscar nomination. However, Hayek (who also produced the film) faced many hurdles in bringing the story of her idol to the big screen, many of which were the doing of the now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein. In 2017, Hayek wrote an article for The New York Times that revealed how Weinstein bullied and sexually harassed her during the making of the film. She revealed how she had to repeatedly reject Weinstein's unwanted sexual advances. After enough rejections, Weinstein began to attack Hayek professionally by placing unreasonable production demands on her.
After five weeks of shooting, Weinstein threatened to pull the plug on the film unless Hayek filmed a full-frontal sex scene with a woman. Hayek ultimately agreed to shoot the scene for the sake of the film, but it caused her to have a nervous breakdown. "My body began to shake uncontrollably, my breath was short and I began to cry and cry, unable to stop, as if I were throwing up tears," she said. "Since those around me had no knowledge of my history of Harvey, they were very surprised by my struggle that morning. It was not because I would be naked with another woman. It was because I would be naked with her for Harvey Weinstein. But I could not tell them then."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Jessica Chastain - Scenes from a Marriage (2021)
The decision to go full frontal in a movie or TV show can be a difficult one for a variety of reasons. One thing that can make it a bit easier for an actor is having a co-star they already know very well, which was the case with Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac: They went to college together and had been friends for over 20 years when they were cast as a divorcing couple in HBO's "Scenes from a Marriage." The limited series contains sex scenes with their characters, which required a certain amount of nudity from the actors.
Chastain agreed to be totally naked in some scenes on the condition that Isaac would have to go full frontal, too. "I said to Hagai [Levi], who wrote and directed the series — in the very beginning, I said, 'I'm comfortable with all the nudity, but any part of my body that you show, you're going to have to show the same with Oscar,'" Chastain explained when the co-stars appeared on The View together. "So, there's a shower scene that I have in Episode 2, and you see my body. And so now, you see his body... I wanted it to be balanced."
Michael Fassbender - Shame (2011)
2011's "Shame" earned its NC-17 rating with its explicit depiction of sex addiction. It's the story of a man named Brandon Sullivan, played by Michael Fassbender. The actor had to film a number of very graphic scenes for the erotic psychological drama, though it wasn't entirely new ground for him: Fassbender had already gone full frontal in earlier roles, including in a previous collaboration with "Shame" director Steve McQueen, 2008's "Hunger." However, "Shame" took things to another level in terms of nudity.
When asked whether he was worried about his nude scenes coming across as "art house porn" by Reuters, Fassbender said, "No, not at all, as I knew the sex wasn't there for titillation or exploitation. It was there as a way for the audience to access this guy's head. I saw all the sexual encounters as being very revealing about what's actually going on inside Brandon." Additionally, the actor said that the low-scale and close-knit nature of the film's production stopped him from feeling timid on the set. "We moved very fast," Fassbender told The Hollywood Reporter. "We shot it in 25 days, so I kind of had to get over it and get on with it."
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Ken Jeong - The Hangover (2009)
The "Hangover" movies are known for fully utilizing their R-ratings, with plenty of raunchy humor and shock value. In one such scene from the first film, a naked Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) leaps out of the trunk of a car and latches onto Bradley Cooper's Phil. It was actually Jeong's idea for his character to be nude in the aforementioned scene, as the actor explained to Philippine Daily Inquirer. "No one made me do it," he said. "I thought, if I do that, this movie will go like a bottle-rocket." Luckily, Jeong and Cooper are friends, so that took away some of the awkwardness. "He and I had dinner the night before we shot that scene," Jeong revealed. "I talked about my plan. Bradley loved it."
Additionally, Jeong credits his wife, Tran Jeong, for not just encouraging him to follow his dreams of acting full-time, but also for giving him permission to do the nude scene. During the production of "The Hangover," Tran was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, which Jeong cited as his motivation to throw caution to the wind while playing Chow. "I played it so aggressively in many ways because I believe life is short," Jeong told George Stroumboulopoulos. "Whatever your instincts are in life, just go for it. Life is short, you have nothing to lose." The scene is one of the most memorable in the movie, and Jeong ended up going full frontal again for 2011's "The Hangover Part II."
Evan Rachel Wood - Mildred Pierce (2011)
Evan Rachel Wood was on the fence about going full frontal for HBO's limited series "Mildred Pierce" back in 2011, but it helped that the young actor found a mentor of sorts in her on-screen mother Kate Winslet. Wood was already a fan of her Oscar-winning co-star, who had ample experience doing nude scenes throughout her career, most famously in James Cameron's 1997 historical epic "Titanic." The scene in question called for Wood to disrobe in front of the camera, and she almost changed her mind about doing it until some wise words from Winslet gave her the courage she needed.
"Kate is one of the strongest, bravest women I've met," Wood said of Winslet (via Contact Music). "She's so confident and is so comfortable with her body, which makes her so beautiful. I had to appear completely nude and I was going to chicken out, but she really put the scene and that moment into perspective and she was right. I'm so glad I did it." According to Wood, she and Winslet had a small celebration to mark this milestone in her career after the scene had been shot. "She was waiting with a drink for me afterwards," Wood revealed. "A toast to my first full frontal. Not that I'm in a hurry to do it again."
Emilia Clarke - Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
In addition to the violence and gore shown on a weekly basis, the nudity in HBO's "Game of Thrones" came in for a lot of criticism. After the series came to a controversial end in 2019, Emilia Clarke (who starred as Daenerys Targaryen in her breakout role) opened up about her early experiences on the show and how she assumed that all the nudity was essential to the story. "I'd come fresh from drama school and I approached it as a job," she said on Dax Shepard's podcast Armchair Expert. "Now I'm on a film set completely naked, with all of these people and I don't know what I'm meant to do, and I don't know what's expected of me."
Luckily for Clarke, she had a very understanding and protective scene partner during her early nude scenes: Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo on the series, regularly stood up for Clarke. "The scenes when I got to do them with Jason were wonderful, because he was like, 'No sweetie, this isn't okay!'" Clarke told Shepard. "It's only now that I realize how fortunate I was with that, because that could have gone many, many, many different ways." The whole experience made the actor "a lot more savvy" when it comes to filming scenes of an intimate nature. "I've had fights on set before where I'm like, 'No, the sheet stays up,'" she revealed. "And they're like, 'You don't want to disappoint your Game of Thrones fans,' and I'm like, 'F*** you.'"
Jude Law - Dom Hemingway (2013)
In a movie where the opening scene features the titular character delivering a soliloquy about the "exquisiteness" of his private parts, there's bound to be some nudity. While playing the loud and boisterous lead in the dark comedy "Dom Hemingway," Jude Law went full frontal, throwing himself into the role. He also transformed his body for the part, gaining 30 pounds by "eating two tubs of ice cream a day and drinking 12 cans of fizzy drinks," The Telegraph reported. Law was willing to do whatever it took to embody his character — even if it meant strolling around one of the sets wearing nothing at all.
The aforementioned opening scene was the first to be filmed, and Law opted to bare all in front of the crew to get the awkwardness out of the way from the get-go. "We hurdled through the whole of this film and I kind of figured that the best way to start was to make sure the crew knew who and what Dom was," the actor told E! News. "So I thought the best way to go was to just start with this crazy opening scene, which is incredibly explicit and I'm naked. I strolled on the set, nothing on, and started that particular soliloquy." Law was no doubt helped by the fact that this wasn't his first full frontal — he also showed us everything during a famous bath scene in "The Talented Mr. Ripley."