Matthew Rhys got surprisingly candid about his experience wearing a prosthetic penis for a role on Lena Dunham‘s hit series Girls.
“I did ask [to keep it],” Rhys, 51, joked to The Guardian on Saturday, April 25. “I wonder what they did with it. I hope it got disinfected.”
Rhys played Chuck Palmer — an author facing sexual misconduct allegations — in one episode of Dunham’s HBO show in 2017. Chuck invites Hannah (Dunham) to his apartment to discuss the allegations — and ends up exposing himself to her.
Rhys is one of many stars who have opened up about using prosthetics for full-frontal scenes. Earlier this year, David Harbour broke down his decision to wear a fake stomach for his show DTF St. Louis.
“It is used a bit for comedic effect, but also I wanted it to play as he uses food in a certain way, and to play as the reality of a guy who’s not getting hits on these [dating] sites, and various things,” Harbour, 51, told TV Insider in March. “We wanted to highlight some of the struggles that he has.”
Harbour called the prosthetic “incredible,” adding, “It’s so funny. I keep thinking back to the prosthetic because … I don’t know that I really needed it. I mean, it only added [a little bit].”
He continued: “I could have really just bulked up a little bit more, and I think I would have been fine, but it was nice to have, because there’s something about having a mask that allows you a freedom.”
Harbour described the process of putting on the false stomach as time-consuming.
“When it was just under my clothes, it was just a suit that I could zip up myself, and it’d be easy, take it off during lunch. But then, when we had to see it, even just the belly part, they had to put on the whole thing, and it took about an hour,” he explained about getting a new prosthetic every day. “They’re printed out of latex. It was about 30 pounds, so it’s like a vest [that came down and] wrapped around the love handles a little bit.”
Billy Bob Thornton, meanwhile, was seen nude while playing Tommy on Landman — but co-creator Christian Wallace clarified in January that it “wasn’t an actual full-frontal” scene.
“We had an on-set intimacy coordinator, and the original prosthetic she brought in made everyone laugh. We were like, ‘No,'” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
After seeing the size of the original prosthetic, the crew opted for “a more humble alternative” for Thornton.
“It is surprising to me that people think that was actually Billy doing full-frontal nudity,” Wallace added. “So I should say props to our intimacy coordinator for making it extremely realistic, and to the props team. They had a whole rig, as Billy called it: ‘Got my rig on.'”
