21 Actors Reveal The Truth About Filming Nude Scenes
by Jenna GuillaumeBuzzFeedBuzzFeed Contributor
Do you ever see a nude scene in a TV show or movie and think, "How the hell do they feel comfortable doing that?" Well, these actors have opened up about what shooting nude scenes is really like, and they have some wild tales to tell. Here's the good, the bad, and the downright awful...
1.
Emilia Clarke's breakout role as Daenerys on Game of Thrones involved a lot of nudity from the very first episode, and she has since been open about the fact that she wasn't always comfortable with it. Speaking to Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast, Emilia said being new to the industry at the time really put her at a disadvantage. "I’ve been on a film set twice before then, and 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, and I don’t know what you want, and I don’t know what I want."
HBO, Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images
"I’m a lot more savvy with what I’m comfortable with, and what I am okay with doing," she said. "I’ve had fights on set before where I’m like, 'No, the sheet stays up,' and they’re like, 'You don’t wanna disappoint your Game of Thrones fans.' And I’m like, 'Fuck you.'"
HBO
2.
Heated Rivalry is famous for its many steamy scenes that required a lot of nudity from leads Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. Hudson told Variety the pair were very comfortable with each other — to the point where he told the intimacy coordinator he didn't need a "crash pad" to cushion his naked body against Connor's thrusts during a sex scene. "I was like, 'I’m good, I’m tough. I’m comfortable, cozy,'" he said. "But he starts going and male genitalia is very obtrusive. It’s not discreet. We start filming, and it's crashing into my balls, and he starts slamming me. My stomach is in a twisting pain. So that was the only part that I was like, 'Fuck, that kind of hurt.'"
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Hudson said his main concern with doing the nude scenes was not his own comfort, but that of everyone else on set. "It was more like, how do I not make people on set uncomfortable. I don’t want to be here with my butthole in the air and then make a grip uncomfortable when they come to fix a light," he said. "But once I found out they were so warm and really passionate about the show, I didn’t have to tiptoe, and I was very comfortable getting naked."
HBO
3.
Amanda Seyfried has said that when she was starting out as an actor, she did nude scenes she wasn't comfortable with because she didn't feel like she had much choice. "Being 19, walking around without my underwear on — like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen? Oh, I know why. I was 19 and I didn’t want to upset anybody, and I wanted to keep my job. That’s why."
StudioCanal, Dominique Charriau / Getty Images
Amanda has done nude scenes since, including in Chloe with Julianne Moore, and seems to have become more comfortable setting boundaries for herself. She recently told BBC Radio that for new movie The Testament of Ann Lee she had a "prosthetic butthole" to protect herself. "This movie, it needed to be graphic so, like, I had a prosthetic butthole... It was cool, it was exciting. I was pregnant and naked but I wasn't naked at all. And at the end of the movie I'm standing in front of a burning building with just a merkin. I felt so free." She added, "You cannot see my butthole in it, but I swear there is a prosthetic butthole there... just in case."
StudioCanal
4.
Amanda's Chloe co-star Julianne Moore has done a number of nude scenes throughout her career, and said it's always an uncomfortable experience. "Somebody asked me, 'How do you become comfortable?' And I'm like, 'You don't. Nobody's comfortable,'" she shared. She added that nude scenes can be necessary when the story calls for it. "If suddenly somebody's sitting there all covered up at home, you're sending a signal to my brain that this isn't true and you're taking [viewers] out of the story."
Sony, Mike Coppola / Getty Images
She also laughed off the idea that her kids will find her on-screen nudity confronting, saying, "I am aware that my kids will one day see my films and might think they are a bit shocking, especially the nude scenes. But, hey, there is always a point in a kid’s life when they hate their mother!"
StudioCanal
5.
Halle Berry's star was already well on the rise when she did her first nude scene for Swordfish, and she said it was only because of her success that she felt comfortable going topless on screen. "So much of my life I was afraid to [do a nude scene]. With the success of my Dorothy Dandridge project and the critical acclaim that brought me, I finally felt that I didn’t have to prove myself anymore."
Warner Bros, Kate Green / Getty Images
Halle said from there she felt she had "nothing to lose" going nude in Monster's Ball, saying that while she considered it was make or break for her career, "If this ends my career, th