These actors dare to go bare. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks of actors who, when the part calls for it, are ready and willing to be both emotionally and physically naked on camera.
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00:00Every time I've been asked to do any kind of nudity on screen, any type of a love scene,
00:06I've been lucky because I've always believed in the scene.
00:09Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks of actors who,
00:13when the part calls for it, are ready and willing to be both emotionally and physically naked on camera.
00:20We really had to go all the way if we were going to make this movie,
00:23so I was either going to be comfortable doing the scenes or somebody else should do it.
00:2820. Sebastian Stan
00:30Sebastian Stan might be best known for his role as Bucky Barnes in the MCU.
00:34I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore.
00:37They're entering the building.
00:38Well, the people who think you did are coming here now, and they're not planning on taking you alive.
00:42That's smart. Good strategy.
00:45However, he's included here because of his Falcon and Winter Soldiers.
00:50When he decided to play Tommy Lee in the Pam and Tommy miniseries,
00:54he stripped down for a strange moment that was, remarkably,
00:57based on an actual account from Lee's memoir.
01:00Stan later commented on his decision to do the scene,
01:03elaborating on how he appreciated the honesty that his depiction would bring to the story.
01:08And it's actually a very sweet scene because it's a love confession, you know, to some extent.
01:14It's a love confession to his...
01:16Well, he's realising he's in love with this woman, and he's telling his best friend.
01:22While the most private part of his anatomy was simulated,
01:25the bold commitment still required a great deal of the actor's trust and confidence in his filmmakers.
01:31It's not his first foray into nudity either,
01:34as he's done a hilariously creative sex scene in The Bronze.
01:42Not only is Viggo Mortensen not afraid to do a nude scene,
01:45he isn't afraid to do one that also requires him to fight two clothed men with knives.
01:50That looked like it was an incredibly brutal scene to shoot.
01:53It was, but it was, I mean, it's David Cronenberg, so you kind of do whatever he says.
01:57OK, so maybe he was a little scared,
01:59or at least a little nervous about shooting that amazing scene in Eastern Promises.
02:03But he did it, just as he also revealed his naked body in all its glory
02:08in a much funnier and less knives-out scene in the 2016 independent film Captain Fantastic.
02:15We're all animals of the Earth.
02:18Clothes when we eat.
02:20We're not saying that the nudity was a factor,
02:23but Mortensen was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for both films.
02:28Number 18. Tom Hardy
02:30Whatever role introduced you to Tom Hardy, there's a good chance you saw him naked.
02:35The HBO miniseries Band of Brothers marked one of his first major roles in 2001.
02:43Where's my stuff?
02:46I thought I'd leave it over there, sir.
02:48The part included a love scene that required him to be naked.
02:51He's gone the full Monty more than once in both the TV film Stuart A Life Backwards
02:57and the 2008 prison drama Bronson.
03:00Most recently in the dark period drama Taboo,
03:04Hardy didn't shy away from being without clothes either.
03:08Take that dress off.
03:10If the Venom movies ever go for an R rating, Hardy might as well help earn it.
03:15Number 17. Sydney Sweeney
03:17Sydney Sweeney isn't afraid of nude scenes,
03:20but she wishes women who show skin on screen were treated the same as men.
03:24What are you thinking, inviting your grandparents?
03:27I wasn't thinking. I was so excited.
03:29And how are they with it?
03:31They said I have the best s*** in Hollywood.
03:35Speaking to The Independent,
03:37Sweeney discussed how men who got naked for a role are still praised for their performance.
03:42It isn't always the same for women.
03:44Discussing her work on Euphoria, Sweeney said,
03:47I thought it was a great performance, but no one talks about it because I got naked.
03:51Sweeney felt critics and award groups finally recognized her for The White Lotus,
03:56which didn't entail nudity.
03:58It sounds like you scored.
04:00Yeah, he's super hot. Congrats.
04:03Of course, Sweeney has since received an Emmy nomination for her work on Euphoria.
04:07So maybe you can strip down and still be taken seriously.
04:11Number 16. Mikkel Huisman
04:14Dutch actor Mikkel Huisman made a big splash with North American audiences
04:18when he took over the role of Dario Naharis
04:21from actor Ed Screen in the fourth season of Game of Thrones.
04:25Are you here to see our queen?
04:29She's in a good mood.
04:31A role that, as the love interest of Daenerys Targaryen,
04:35required him to spend some time on screen without clothes.
04:38He was more than OK with that.
04:40Given the double standard women have faced regarding nudity on camera,
04:44Huisman was happy to be part of the power dynamic role reversal with The Mother of Dragons.
04:49Huisman said,
04:50Telling a man to take off his clothes, where it's often the other way around,
04:55I was happy to be a victim of that.
04:57I hear you had a great love scene, huh?
05:00Yeah. Thanks.
05:02Number 15. Margot Robbie
05:04You know the scene in The Wolf of Wall Street
05:06when Margot Robbie's character appears fully naked in the doorway
05:10to seduce Leonardo DiCaprio?
05:12I have an entire line of lingerie.
05:14No camisoles, bustiers, panties.
05:18She designs women's panties too? Oh my God.
05:22Well, if you thought Martin Scorsese had to convince Robbie to be fully nude,
05:27you're wrong.
05:28Not only did he not have to convince her,
05:30the no clothes thing was her idea.
05:33The director offered her the option of a robe,
05:35but Robbie felt nudity was the right way to go for the character and the scene.
05:39It wasn't just about the sex either. Naomi and I got along.
05:43Robbie hates films that have nudity just to get a girl naked,
05:46but when it's true to the scene, she's more than comfortable with it.
05:50Number 14. Michael Fassbender
05:53If you're sitting there racking your brain trying to remember
05:55when Magneto got naked in X-Men First Class, you can stop.
06:00From what I know about you, I'm surprised you've managed to stay this long.
06:05What do you know about me?
06:07Everything.
06:09Then you'll know to stay out of my head.
06:11That's far from Michael Fassbender's most revealing performance.
06:14For that, we have to talk about his work as Bobby Sands in Hunger
06:18and Brandon Sullivan in Shame, both directed by Steve McQueen.
06:23Fassbender goes full frontal in both films.
06:26While getting naked in front of strangers isn't something he relishes,
06:29in referencing the Sullivan character, he has said that
06:33it had to be done. It was an essential part of getting inside the psyche.
06:37I'm trying. I'm trying to help you.
06:39How are you helping me, huh? How are you helping me?
06:43How are you helping me?
06:46Huh? Look at me. How are you helping me?
06:49Number 13. Jennifer Lawrence
06:51In 2014, a hacker broke into Jennifer Lawrence's email,
06:55revealing private nude photos of the Oscar-winning actress to the public.
06:59I had just had a lot of insecurities when it came to sexuality and nudity
07:03and my body, and I had just been carrying them around for years.
07:07It was a hard time for Lawrence, and one that took her years to come to terms with.
07:11Interestingly enough, one of the ways she empowered herself
07:14was by doing nude scenes in her 2018 film Red Sparrow.
07:18Obviously, it worked, because a few years later,
07:21she was naked on screen again in the comedy No Hard Feelings,
07:24a choice she made, as she told Variety, without a second thought.
07:29Let's go swimming.
07:31Well, there's no lifeguards.
07:33Perfect. We can go skinny dipping.
07:36Uh, no swimming.
07:39Ah, we tried.
07:40Number 12. Kate Winslet
07:42She disrobed for one of the most famous nude scenes in cinema history.
07:47Being sketched by Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic
07:50is just one of the many times Kate Winslet has removed her clothes for a role.
07:54Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.
07:58Wearing this.
08:00Alright.
08:03Wearing only this.
08:05In fact, it's something she's been doing throughout her career
08:08when the role called for it, from 1996's Jude to Ammonite in 2020.
08:13Being 43 at the time, Winslet was surprised
08:16at how good she felt about filming the nude scenes for the latter.
08:19Instead of shying away from her older body,
08:22Winslet embraced it, with all of its marks and scars.
08:26I'm really comfortable in my own skin,
08:28and I'm comfortable with all the imperfections that I have,
08:31and I don't feel the need to hide any of those things,
08:34because I do think it's very important
08:36that women on screen are portrayed as real women.
08:39Number 11. Eva Green
08:41Eva Green is very shy,
08:43but you wouldn't know it from her willingness to be nude on camera.
08:46I am so shy, and at the same time I expose myself
08:51literally to thousands of people, and this is my body,
08:56but I still don't really understand why I do that,
08:59and I need to go through therapy.
09:01Even she doesn't understand the paradoxical nature of those two things.
09:05But it's been that way since she first burst onto the scene
09:08in her film debut as Isabelle in 2003's The Dreamers,
09:13a role that required her to be naked quite a bit.
09:16Since then, she's continued to not shy away from nudity,
09:19from Sin City, A Dame to Kill For, to Penny Dreadful,
09:23to name just a couple of her emotionally and physically bared roles.
09:27Do I have a choice?
09:29Vanessa, please, you always had a choice.
09:33You allowed all this to happen.
09:35Number 10. Chris Pine
09:37My lord, it's no time to retire to your bedchamber.
09:40Please follow me.
09:42Even the most risque nude scenes from the past
09:45often have one particular double standard going for them.
09:48Gender-biased nudity.
09:50Specifically, a sex scene might require a great deal more nudity
09:53from a female actor than a male.
09:55However, actors like Chris Pine are working to change that dynamic,
09:59one nude scene at a time.
10:01Alas, we are but king and queen of the may.
10:07And tomorrow will come to strip us of our crowns.
10:10Pine and co-star Florence Pugh were both tasked with a love scene
10:14in the 2018 Netflix film Outlaw King.
10:17Pine, to his credit, bared it all alongside his co-star,
10:21yet was surprised at the backlash.
10:24He spoke to the Mirror and defended his decision, asking,
10:27Is Florence expected to do that because she is a woman,
10:30and I'm not expected to do that because I'm a man?
10:32Sorry, there's a scene in the film where I bare the, do the full Monty.
10:38And, uh, yeah, that seemed to, um...
10:41Well, yeah.
10:43You go, Chris.
10:45Number nine, Ken Jeong.
10:47I have to ask you this, because when you jump out of that trunk
10:50in The Hangover, he's fully there.
10:55The full Monty.
10:57The idea behind Ken Jeong's hilarious nude scenes
11:00in The Hangover franchise actually came from the man himself,
11:04believe it or not.
11:05Jeong revealed as much to AOL during an interview conducted back in 2017.
11:10Multiple takes were done of Jeong leaping out of the trunk of a car,
11:14but it was the actor's pitch to director Todd Phillips that sealed the deal.
11:18This isn't your fault. I'll get you some pants.
11:21Jeong sort of made going in the buff tradition after that,
11:24going nude again with The Hangover Part 2 in 2011,
11:28proving that he absolutely wasn't afraid to tempt naked feet a second time.
11:38Number eight, Lena Dunham.
11:43Sorry, you really scared me, Adam.
11:45No, thank you.
11:47The promotion of body positivity in cinema isn't something that happened overnight.
11:51It also isn't only part of the big screen, either.
11:54Lena Dunham helped promote the beauty of all bodies
11:57during her nude scenes for the HBO series Girls.
12:00I do a lot of sex scenes in the show, and I'm usually nude for them,
12:03because unlike so many films we see where women are having sex
12:06in kind of a perky negligee, a lot of times people get naked to have sex, I think.
12:10I never have, actually.
12:12Meanwhile, the actor, writer, and director purposefully defied the accepted norms
12:16of who should and shouldn't do on-screen nudity,
12:20and wasn't afraid to document her feelings in the press.
12:23Her interviews with outlets such as Marie Claire, The Guardian, and Refinery29
12:28all point to an actor who was fighting for freedom of sexual expression with her work.
12:33It wasn't always an easy road, but Dunham's fearlessness
12:36allowed many other artists to tread similar creative paths with less fear.
12:43Number seven, Jason Segel.
12:53I'm Jay, and this is my lovely wife Annie,
12:55and tonight we intend to demonstrate every position in the joy of sex.
13:01On-screen nudity doesn't necessarily need to be titillating.
13:04Case in point, the full frontal nude scene from Jason Segel
13:08in the 2008 film Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
13:11I got a surprise for you.
13:14This intentionally shocking and very funny scene was actually the actor's idea,
13:20proving that he was unafraid of any audience repercussions.
13:23Part of the reasoning behind Segel's nude scene
13:26was to represent his character hitting his lowest point.
13:29Why don't you just put some clothes on, okay?
13:31I'm not gonna go put clothes on. I know what that means. If I put clothes on, it's over.
13:34The resulting embarrassment at being dumped by the titular Sarah Marshall
13:38was described by Segel during a 2015 interview with Vulture
13:42as something that wasn't just for shock value.
13:46Number six, Katherine Waterson.
13:48Hi, Shasta.
13:51Hi, Doc.
13:53For some actors, on-screen nudity is just one part of the process
13:56they go through as performers.
13:58This definitely applies to Katherine Waterson,
14:00who's said as much during interviews with outlets
14:03like the New York Daily News and the Huffington Post.
14:06Her interview with the former saw Waterson connecting
14:09the vulnerability of nudity with the acting process.
14:12I don't think it's that big of a deal, honestly.
14:15I wish there was more male nudity in films, however,
14:18because men are naked all the time, and you never see it in film.
14:22I just think it's uneven.
14:24Meanwhile, the actor discussed her full frontal scene in the 2014 film
14:27Inherent Vice in the Huffington Post,
14:30describing the work as liberating and freeing.
14:33Sure, not every actor may feel this way,
14:35but we certainly admire Katherine Waterson's position
14:38on a very challenging aspect of the craft.
14:41They told me I was precious cargo that couldn't be insured
14:45because of Inherent Vice.
14:48What's that?
14:52I don't know.
15:02We're firmly of the mind that Alexander Skarsgård
15:05should absolutely reap the rewards of all of his hard work in the gym
15:09by doing as many nude scenes as his heart desires.
15:13People are slightly more comfortable with nudity in Sweden,
15:17and I also come from a family, my dad and especially his side of the family
15:21are old hippies and bohemians,
15:24and I think I was 14 the first time I saw my dad wearing pants.
15:29Skarsgård may come from an acting family,
15:32but he certainly blazed a trail on both the small and large screens.
15:36I'm bored. Take off your clothes.
15:42A little privacy?
15:46Everybody out!
15:47His brushes with nudity may have first entered the cultural zeitgeist
15:51back in the HBO series True Blood,
15:53but Skarsgård hasn't stopped pushing the physical envelope with his performances.
15:58The actor's work on Robert Eggers' The Northman, in particular,
16:02showcased a heretofore unseen physicality from Skarsgård
16:06that was as shocking as it was sexually charged.
16:12Charlize Theron has seen both sides of the on-screen nudity coin.
16:16On one hand, the actor's early work often saw Theron performing
16:20in sexually provocative sequences for films like Reindeer Games
16:24and Two Days in the Valley that required explicit nudity.
16:28Meanwhile, more recent features like Atomic Blonde
16:30saw Theron's nudity being utilised to tell a story,
16:33rather than just for purient titillation.
16:36You pay attention.
16:41I look for pleasure in the details.
16:43It's a respite, a moment of calm in the bath for recovery,
16:47during a film that's packed with violent action.
16:50Furthermore, Theron has told outlets such as The Daily Telegraph
16:54and W Magazine about how she has no issues with nudity
16:58if the scene requires it to make sense.
17:01These relationships aren't real. They're just a means to an end.
17:08When you tell the truth, you look different.
17:11Your eyes change.
17:14Thanks for the warning.
17:17Take your clothes off.
17:20All of them.
17:23There are some actors who just don't feel the need to contextualise
17:27or explain away the frequency of their nude scenes.
17:30Instead, they relish the thought and lean into those scenes
17:34with an almost gleeful zeal.
17:36Ewan McGregor has certainly come across this way
17:39in some interviews over the years,
17:41such as the one he did with Out magazine
17:44while promoting Velvet Goldmine in 1998.
17:47We set out to change the world.
17:49Ended up just changing ourselves.
17:51McGregor utilised words like power and rush
17:54to describe going full frontal on screen,
17:57and it's this matter-of-factness
17:59that makes the actor's attitude so refreshing.
18:02Just maybe don't bet on seeing Obi-Wan's lightsaber
18:05for any Star Wars-related media any time soon.
18:09Alright, but you owe me one,
18:11and not for saving your skin for the tenth time.
18:13Ninth.
18:15Number two, Monica Bellucci.
18:17Italy's Monica Bellucci is another actor
18:20that's performed on-screen nudity
18:22with wildly varying tonal shades.
18:30The actor's natural beauty has been celebrated
18:33in films like Milena or Bram Stoker's Dracula,
18:36and even in the 1990s,
18:38when the actor's natural beauty
18:40has been celebrated in films like
18:42or Bram Stoker's Dracula.
18:44And even in outlandish exploitation fare,
18:47like 2007's Shoot Him Up.
18:55However, Bellucci has also featured in nude scenes
18:58where the plot ventured into truly dark territory,
19:01such as 2002's Irreversible.
19:12The actor has remained professional
19:14and unafraid throughout it all,
19:16even telling Entertainment Weekly in 2002
19:19that nudity was
19:20something magic and pure.
19:22Bellucci went on, however,
19:24to state her opposition to nudity
19:26that she felt was gratuitous,
19:28describing her personal attitude
19:30as one she cultivated growing up in Europe.
19:33Before we unveil our top pick,
19:35here are a few honourable mentions.
19:37Bioluminescence.
19:39Here are a few honourable mentions.
19:41Viola Davis.
19:43She was proud of her body
19:44and how to get away with murder.
19:46I saw it as an opportunity
19:48for a dark-skinned actress of 50
19:50to be in a role that sexualized,
19:53not sexy.
19:54There's a difference between sexualized and sexy.
19:57Ashton Kutcher.
19:58No clothes attached in No Strings Attached.
20:01Where are my pants?
20:03Um, I don't know.
20:04They could be anywhere.
20:05Here's a coffin.
20:08Sharon Stone.
20:09Nudity is a basic instinct.
20:13It's nice.
20:15Ana de Armas.
20:17You can't be afraid of nudity
20:19if you're going to be playing Marilyn Monroe.
20:21She's a prude!
20:24Miss Golden Dreams, all people.
20:28Human body is meant to be seen.
20:32Mila Jovovich.
20:33From The Fifth Element
20:34to waking up naked in the shower
20:36in Resident Evil.
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21:02make sure you go into your settings
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21:06Number 1.
21:07Angelina Jolie.
21:08The career arc of an actor
21:10often takes them in different places as they age.
21:12Resist happiness.
21:14Don't quote some book
21:15and try to analyze your life.
21:16You don't resist happiness.
21:17Are you trying to illustrate your point
21:18by making me unhappy?
21:20The Angelina Jolie that performed nude
21:22in 2015's By The Sea
21:24was not the same person who appeared
21:25in films like Cyborg 2,
21:27Hackers or Original Sin.
21:29Christ, you'll be the death of me.
21:36I hope so.
21:38All of those films featured nudity
21:39in a sexualized context,
21:41performed by a younger actor.
21:43Yet, By The Sea also featured a nude Jolie,
21:46this time after a real-life double mastectomy.
21:49The actor and director told the New York Times
21:51how the scene required a nude performance
21:53and how Jolie's personal challenges
21:55wouldn't get in the way of her art.
21:57This all ties into Angelina Jolie's bohemian
22:00and non-conforming dedication to her career.
22:03You're smiling.
22:09Now my outsides match my insides.
22:12Which of these revealing performances
22:14do you remember most?
22:15Let us know in the comments.
22:17Don't let me down, buddy.
22:18I'm not letting you down at all.
22:19No, I wasn't talking to you.
22:22Don't let me down.
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