16 Actors Who Said “No” To Nudity And Wore Prosthetic Body Parts Vs. 15 Who Went Full Commando
Jon Hamm wore fake nipples in Season 5 of Fargo. His character has pierced nipples, so they used real piercings on prosthetic nipples and applied them to Jon’s chest.
This post includes mention of sexual abuse.
1. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Niecy Nash wore a prosthetic butt on Reno 911! Miami, and it was actually her idea. “I went to so many booty fittings, you don’t understand,” she told Conan O’Brien. “They couldn’t get it right because they were building it straight back. So, I went to my girlfriend I brought her up there — who had, you know, the natural slamma jamma — and I’m like, ‘See? You gotta start from the hips and wrap it around.'”
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She said that she chose to wear a prosthetic because she never saw women on TV that looked like women in her family.
2. FULL COMMANDO: Jennifer Lawrence confirmed that she did not use a body double for her fully naked scene in No Hard Feelings. She explained that she felt totally comfortable on set and wanted to do the nudity herself because of how funny she thought the scene was. “Everyone in my life and my team is doing the right thing and going, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?’ I didn’t even have a second thought,” she said. “It was hilarious to me.”
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3. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Bill Skarsgärd wore a ton of prosthetics to play Count Orlak in Nosferatu, including a prosthetic penis. During a scene where Orlak had to suck Nicholas Hoult’s character’s blood, Nicholas could feel the prosthetic rubbing against his leg and “didn’t know how to react.” After filming wrapped, Nicholas was gifted the penis framed.
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4. FULL COMMANDO: Cooper Koch appeared naked in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and confirmed he doesn’t wear a prosthetic penis in the series. He even said that he was “shocked” at the public response to the nudity, he said, “I’m an actor, and I’m talking about doing a nude scene in a TV show, and, yes, the TV show also has to do with sexual abuse. Like, it’s just sort of an unfortunate pairing that happened. I was comfortable doing it, and…we all have bodies and body parts, and it’s just sort of, like, normal for me.”
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5. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: J.K. Simmons wore a prosthetic penis in Saturday Night. “I didn’t know about it until I got to Atlanta for my few days [shoot],” he told Variety. “I just assumed the camera was going to be belt-high and everything else left to the imagination. And obviously, you know, it’s not. We’re not looking for an X-rating, but I didn’t even think there would be a prosthetic involved.”
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Costar Cory Michael Smith shared that during one take J.K. pulled out the prosthetic but it “fully fell out and slapped the floor.”
6. FULL COMMANDO: Oscar Isaac went full frontal for his series Scenes From a Marriage but said he didn’t even realize it’d be included in the final cut. “I was surprised because I didn’t know that was gonna happen,” he said. “You get sent the stuff to look at and to be like, ‘Okay, I’m fine with that.’ But I saw it on a laptop, quite dark, and I didn’t notice what was happening down there. It was a surprise when I started seeing all these [headlines] like, ‘It’s full frontal!’ I’m like, ‘No, what are you talking about?! And I saw it clear as day on the big TV there.”
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7. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Jon Hamm wore fake nipples in Season 5 of Fargo. His character has pierced nipples, so they used real piercings on prosthetic nipples and applied them to Jon’s chest. During an interview with Jimmy Fallon, he explained exactly how the prosthetics were applied; he said, “They have to paint some latex on your nipples, and then they pull it off, and then they put a little fake nipple and put a ring through it. It’s the magic of movies. You, too, can have fake nipples made.”
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8. FULL COMMANDO: Alison Brie did a nude scene in the movie Somebody I Used To Know where her character streaks through a golf course. “I find it to be quite hilarious. I’m a very comfortable naked person,” she said. “I love streaking. It’s so fun. It really makes me laugh. I always think it makes other people laugh. It’s just one of my favorite things.”
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Alison added that her husband, Dave Franco, who directed and co-wrote the film, doesn’t share the same love for public nudity. “I’ve spent years talking Dave into accepting my comfort with nudity,” she said. “He’s comfortable with me being nude at our home, but in public, he’s more averse to it.”
9. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Margaret Qualley wore prosthetic boobs in The Substance. Director Coralie Fargeat wanted Margaret’s character to look “’80s inspired, with butt and boobs, think Jessica Rabbit.” Speaking about the boobs, Margaret even told The Sunday Times, “Unfortunately, there is no magic boob potion, so we had to glue those on. Coralie found an incredible prosthetic team to endow me with the rack of a lifetime, just not my lifetime.”
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10. FULL COMMANDO: Jesse Williams starred in Take Me Out on Broadway, where he was required to fully strip down onstage, and after several “Are you sure?” questions from his friends, family, and Grey’s Anatomy castmates, he said he “wasn’t nervous” for them to see the scene.
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He told Andy Cohen, “Everybody makes such a big deal. It’s a body. Once you see it, you realize it’s whatever.” He continued, “It’s a first so I have nothing to compare it to, and I won’t be scared of anything after this, that’s for sure.”
11. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Drew Starkey chose not to be nude onscreen for Queer and wore a prosthetic penis. In an interview with Time, he explained that movement rehearsals were what helped break the ice for him and costar Daniel Craig. “We got to embarrass ourselves in front of one another — and have little accomplishments in the choreography with each other,” he said. “That imbued its way into everything.”
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12. FULL COMMANDO: When Daniel Radcliffe starred in Equus on Broadway, he had a scene that required him to be fully naked onstage, and said he wasn’t as nervous as he thought he’d be: “It never really was an issue. I don’t know why, it probably should have been. I am terribly self-conscious. Although I remember I did look at my dad once and say, ‘Do you think I could wear pants?’”
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He shared that he actually suffered from Michelangelo’s David Effect: “[David] wasn’t very well endowed, because he was fighting Goliath. There was very much of that effect. You tighten up like a hamster. The first time it happened, I turned around and went, ‘You know, there’s a thousand people here, and I don’t think even one of them would expect you to look your best in this situation.’”
13. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Jonathan Bailey wore a fake penis in Fellow Travelers, and he shared how he chose which prosthetic to use. He told Seth Meyers, “When we started, obviously, you wear a protective layer, obviously, to protect yourself and so it’s not awkward. But, for the nature of the show, you want to choose something that maybe reflects what’s actually going on.”
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“They’ve all got their different personalities,” he said of the penis props. “When you’re approaching character you think emotionally, cerebrally, and then you have to really make a big choice.”
14. FULL COMMANDO: Emma Stone chose to go fully nude in Poor Things and said that she felt those scenes were easy to film because they were choreographed. “In some ways, that was the easiest part because that was choreographed. Those were quick. We knew exactly what we were doing,” she said.
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15. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Charles Melton wore a prosthetic penis for May December and recalled wearing it for “nine hours a day.” “It was very professional,” he told Variety. “The whole thing. Natalie, Todd, and I met to discuss the scene, walking through it and ensuring everybody was comfortable. There were a few conversations about the prosthetic, regarding what was realistic and what wasn’t. And I had to wear that prosthetic for nine hours that day. I didn’t have anything to drink that morning or the night before. That was an annoying process but still very respectful.”
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16. FULL COMMANDO: Sydney Sweeney has appeared topless in several episodes of Euphoria. She said she feels there’s “a stigma against actresses who get naked on-screen.” She explained, “When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise. But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different.” She added, “I’m very proud of my work in Euphoria. I thought it was a great performance. But no one talks about it because I got naked.”
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Sydney has also spoken extremely highly of Euphoria‘s creator for listening to and respecting her feelings toward nudity: “Sam [Levinson] is amazing. There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it.’ I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”
17. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Taylor Zakhar Perez wore a prosthetic penis for Minx. He also told Entertainment Weekly that he’s “all for” nudity when it makes sense for the scene. “If the project and the scenes call for it, why not?” he said. “But I think just to throw a bare-chested woman or ass-out guy into the scene without it making sense, then it’s gratuitous and takes away from the quality of the content.”
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18. FULL COMMANDO: Jason Segel did a full-frontal scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and he thought it was “hilarious.” He told Vulture, “I was actually not very uncomfortable doing it. I really felt free.”
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He explained that the nudity wasn’t purely to surprise the audience, because there was actually a creative reason behind it: “You have to put it in the context that this was 2006, 2007, and this hadn’t been done before, in my recollection, where the main guy was going to be naked in the first five minutes of the movie. There was a creative idea behind it, it wasn’t just for shock value.”
19. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Penélope Cruz wore a prosthetic butt for the movie Volver and said she got so attached to it she didn’t want to take it off. “At the end of the shoot, I was blocked. I could not leave the set. I didn’t want to take my false ass off,” she said at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
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20. FULL COMMANDO: Michael Fassbender did a full-frontal nude scene in Shame, but he didn’t have time to feel self-conscious because of the film’s tight shooting schedule. “We moved very fast. We shot it in 25 days, so I kind of had to get over it and get on with it,” he said.
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In an interview with Vulture, he even shared that he was confused why there wasn’t MORE male nudity in film. He said, “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!”
21. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Lily James wore a bunch of prosthetics to transform into Pamela Anderson for the series Pam & Tommy, including a fake chest. “The breast piece was amazing,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “You would never, never know it wasn’t me. It was shocking.” She added that it took long to put on and made her very warm. She also said, “It would be boiling hot — I got really sweaty and my boobs were coming off.”
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22. FULL COMMANDO: Angelina Jolie was tempted to cut her nude scenes in By the Sea, which came out two years after she’d undergone a double mastectomy. She said, “You can’t change or cut this scene because you’ve had a mastectomy. That would be cheating.”
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But years later she posed naked again for Harper’s Bazaar; she opened up about the challenges she faced displaying her body: “My body has been through a lot over the past decade, particularly the past four years, and I have both the visible and invisible scars to show for it.”
23. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Sarah Shahi wore prosthetic boobs for the Netflix series Sex/Life. On Instagram, she shared that she wore the prosthetics for any scene where her character was breastfeeding and that they took 3-4 hours to put on.
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24. FULL COMMANDO: Halle Berry appeared naked in Monster’s Ball and said that she agreed to the nudity because her costar, Billy Bob Thornton, was doing it too. “It was four days before the end of shooting, so we knew who these people were, and we just went for it,” she said. “We both agreed to be uninhibited with our bodies, so it wasn’t just the woman who was being exposed, and we just said, ‘Let’s service these characters.’ We only had to do it one time, which is good, because you don’t really want to have to go there that many times…”
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25. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Terrence Terrell wore a prosthetic penis in Obliterated. Since the full frontal scene is extremely torturous, the creators wanted to ensure Terrence felt comfortable. “We would never put Terrence in that situation,” co-creator Josh Heald told Deadline. “There was a lot of manhandling and prodding. And it’s not just Terrence but also Tobias [Jelinek], who plays the sadistic Ehren; he has a lot of interaction with Trunk’s situation. The attitude was always to make sure that was a prosthetic and that we weren’t asking somebody to be put in that vulnerable situation.”
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26. FULL COMMANDO: Chris Pine got fully naked for Outlaw King because he felt like it was only fair since Florence Pugh got nude for the movie too. He said, “Florence shows her entire body in this film and no one is talking about that. Is Florence expected to do that because she is a woman and I’m not expected to do that because I’m a man?”
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He said, “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?” He also doesn’t see the big deal over nude bodies, and said, “People want to talk about my penis as if we’re a bunch of teenagers playing spin the bottle.” He added, “This is the fifth film where I’ve had full-frontal male nudity. No one’s ever had such a fuss about it. It says something about our times and I wish people would get over it.”
27. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Eric Dane wore a prosthetic penis during Euphoria and he even got to choose what it looked like. “I had absolute control over the penis. Because it was supposed to be mine,” he told Men’s Health. “I approved it. I said, ‘This looks like a nice penis. Let’s use this one.'”
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28. FULL COMMANDO: James McAvoy appeared naked in The Last King of Scotland, and revealed that he actually really enjoys getting naked for his projects. “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?” he said.
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29. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Theo James wore a prosthetic penis in Season 2 of The White Lotus. During discussions with the show’s makeup head, Rebecca Hickey, he felt the prop “needs to be ‘Regular Joe.'” “I just wanted it not to be distracting,” he said to Jimmy Fallon. “Because the scene, you know, it’s not about the pee pee, it’s about power play and sex.”
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Once he saw the size of it he laughed at how big it seemed. “It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field!” he joked. “The thing is ginormous.”
30. FULL COMMANDO: Leonardo DiCaprio decided to go au naturel for The Wolf of Wall Street. “It was all me, pal,” he told Extra. “All the flopping around, all the everything was all me.” He added that several moments from the movie had to be cut to avoid an NC-17 rating.
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“When you take on a character like this and you want to accurately reflect the nature of who these people are, you just gotta do it,” he added. “You can’t think about yourself, because it’s not me, it’s a depiction of somebody else.”
31. PREFERRED A PROSTHETIC: Finally, Matthew Rhys wore a fake penis in the series Girls, and he was offered the choice between a few different prosthetics, but he decided to let the director and creative team choose. “I said, ‘That’s fine, thank you. That’s the one I’ll use.’ It wasn’t the one used by Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights,” he joked. “No. Clearly not. That one is far larger!”
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