“I strolled onto set, nothing on, and started that particular soliloquy.”
Shooting hot and passionate scenes in films is quite typical, but when it comes to male performers really baring it all on camera, it’s a completely different story.
That’s the reason it makes headlines when an actor agrees to go completely exposed onscreen — yet if you ask them about it, they’re usually fairly casual about it!
Here’s what these celebrities had to say about revealing everything:
1. Jesse Williams – Take Me Out
Source: Joe Scarnici / Getty Images for GQ
In his Broadway debut, Jesse Williams stripped down in front of a live audience in Take Me Out. While he stated he learned to filter out audience reactions and didn’t want to know if his family was in the audience before the event, he didn’t believe it was a huge concern.
“Everybody makes such a big deal. It’s a body. Once you see it you realize it’s whatever. I just have to make it not that big of a deal,” he shared on Watch What Happens Live.
2. Chris Pine — Outlaw King
Source: Stefanie Keenan / WireImage for Vanity Fair / Getty
Chris Pine went full frontal in the 2018 film Outlaw King in a sequence where his character rises from a lake. While the nudity is only there for a brief moment, Chris says he felt it was vital to his character’s story. Chris said that all the headlines about the scene startled him and that he was ” embarrassed it actually has to be a thing to talk about” ahead of the film’s release.
“There’s certainly a double standard because nobody would talk about it if it were a woman. I would say, ‘Why? Because women are expected to do it and men aren’t? Why aren’t men expected to do it? Why haven’t men done it before? Does it show vulnerability? Does it exhibit this vestigial, puritanical shame over the human body and human intimacy? Yet violence, self-flagellation, and hurting one another we can do—because that’s what we’ve been taught culturally is OK?’ I don’t know. It certainly seems to be an odd thing,” Pine said to E! News.
3. Ben Affleck — Gone Girl
Source: Kevin Winter / Getty Images
In Gone Girl, Ben Affleck bared it all in the blink of an eye. Ben says he had no idea viewers would be able to see anything during the scene that made headlines.
We had a shower scene in the movie. And David [Fincher] assured me, because trust is essential with directors and actors: ‘Listen, if we tilt down we will never go far enough to see anything.’ So thank you, David. And I’d like to thank you for keeping the set cool. Because if you are gonna have one chance for America to see your junk you want it to be cold. It’s a real gift,” Ben joked at the Hollywood Film Awards.
4. Ewan McGregor — Multiple Films
Source: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
When it comes to taking on new roles, Ewan McGregor has never avoided being naked. In reality, he’s been stripped down in a number of films, including Trainspotting and Velvet Goldmine. He claims that the whole thing has never been an issue for him and that he simply performs it as part of his job.
“Being naked is something that happens at either end of the day for me, and if you’re lucky, somewhere in the middle as well. And I don’t understand why it’s an issue. I don’t take my clothes off in movies because I want to flash my body around. I took my clothes off for movies because I’m an actor,” Ewan told E!
5. Tom Cruise — All The Right Moves
Source: Hector Vivas / Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
Although Tom Cruise went full frontal in All The Right Moves, he wasn’t supposed to expose himself in the movie. When Lea Thompson told him she was uncomfortable with her own nude sequences, he helped talk the directors out of one of them, she revealed. Tom proposed that he strip down as well in the last scene.
“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,” Lea told Indiewire.
6. Michael Fassbender — Shame
Source: Axelle / FilmMagic
The 2012 movie Shame doesn’t lack nude scenes at all. When it came to deciding whether or not to take the job, Michael claims he considered the film industry’s double standards on nudity for men and women, and then dedicated the role to his mother!
“It just baffles me: Women can parade around naked all the time, but the guy conveniently has his pants on. I remember my mom always complaining about that to me, saying, ‘This is such bullshit, it’s always the women who are naked” … so I did this one for you, Mom!'” he shared with Vulture.
7. Jude Law — Dom Hemingway
Source: Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images
Jude Law didn’t seem to mind getting naked for his role in Dom Hemingway, and he even shot his nude scene on the first day of filming. He claims he came on set naked merely to get into character.
“We hurtled 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. So I thought the best way to go was to start with this crazy opening scene, which is incredibly explicit and I’m naked. So I strolled onto set, nothing on, and started that particular soliloquy,” Jude told E!
8. Kevin Bacon — Wild Things
Source: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images
Kevin Bacon doesn’t mind being naked on camera; he just doesn’t like talking about it. While Kevin enjoyed stripping down for his film Wild Things, he claims he became annoyed when he was constantly asked about it in interviews.
“My problem with nudity though — I did a movie called Wild Things, it was full-frontal nudity. And I didn’t have a problem with it, because it’s a scene getting out of the shower and it was just that kind of movie. What I did have a problem with was the fact that when I went to promote the movie — and even to this day — that’s all I talk about. So it kind of ended up being, I don’t know, just kind of boring to me as a topic of conversation,” Kevin said in an interview with Business Insider.
9. Jason Segel — Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Source: Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic for HBO
Viewers received a full frontal glimpse of a naked Jason Segel hoping to surprise his onscreen love with a sensual night at home just a few minutes into 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Instead, he ends up breaking up with her, which sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Jason wrote the sequence himself and claims he wouldn’t have done so unless it served a creative purpose.
“There was a creative idea behind it; it wasn’t just for shock value. I wanted it to be the most humiliating breakup of all time. When I was writing it, I thought to myself, ‘The problem with romantic comedies is, you know what’s going to happen. The guy on the poster is going to end up with the girl on the poster.’ But if I open this movie with something you cannot believe you’re seeing, you’re sort of forced to go into a different attitude. You don’t know what’s going to happen in this movie,” Jason told Vulture.
10. Richard Gere — American Gigolo
Source: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Richard Gere made history as one of the first male actors to appear entirely naked in his 1980 film American Gigolo, about a male sex worker. Richard claims that he didn’t intend to be naked in the film and that it just happened.
“If I recall, [the nudity] wasn’t in the script. It was just in the natural process of making the movie. I certainly felt vulnerable, but I think it’s different for men than women,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
11. James McAvoy — The Last King of Scotland
Source: Arturo Holmes / Getty Images
James McAvoy has no problem going full frontal in movies (or on stage). When asked about his nude scene in The Last King of Scotland, James stated that he simply loves being naked.
“Yeah, I like to get naked. I like being naked, I like being naked on stage, more than I like being naked on film. Naked on film is not that fun, but naked on stage is really quite freeing. On stage there’s nowhere to hide, you’re completely vulnerable. When you’re completely vulnerable, it can’t get any worse, can it?” James said.
