Celebrities Who Opened Up About Going Full Frontal Nude on Screen and on Stage Over the Years: From Theo James to Dakota Johnson

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Celebrities Who Opened Up About Going Full Frontal Nude on Screen and on Stage Over the Years: From Theo James to Dakota Johnson

Baring it all. Theo James, Dakota Johnson and more actors have opened up about their nude scenes — and broke down the experience of going full frontal. The England native raised eyebrows with his performance as Cameron during season 2 of The White Lotus. The hit HBO series, which returned for its second run in October 2022, focuses on the guests and employees at a fictional resort. In a memorable scene from the sophomore season, Harper (Aubrey Plaza) accidentally snuck a peek at Cameron (James) while he undressed. At the time, the Divergent actor discussed the work that went into bringing the NSFW moment to life. “The truth of it was you go into these things and you have a conversation with the director and the producers, and they go, ‘OK, for this, we’re going to use a prosthetic, we’re gonna use something,’” he explained during a December 2022 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “It’s a pee-pee prosthetic." For the Golden Boy star, it was important that the prosthetic wouldn't be too "distracting" for the audience. "He needs to be [a] regular Joe because the scene’s not about the pee-pee, it’s about power play in sex [and] whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident,” he added. James joked about his reaction after watching the scene for the first time, saying, "I mean, it’s bigger than that. It’s like she stole it off a donkey in the field. The thing is ginormous." [jwplayer LfFWEJ5Q-zhNYySv2] Johnson, for her part, has also been candid about playing Anastasia in the film version of E. L. James' 50 Shades of Grey trilogy. Amid its release, the movies made headlines for its explicit sex scenes. "It's stressful enough to be tied to a bed naked in a scene," the actress revealed to Glamour in 2015 about filming the sex scenes. "But then they call cut, and you’re still tied to the bed, naked. Jamie [Dornan] would be the first one to throw a blanket over me." According to BAFTA nominee, the worst part was the idea of her parents, Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, seeing her naked on screen. "My mom came up for a day [during filming]. She's proud of me," Dakota detailed. "But I don't want my family to see [the movie], because it's inappropriate. Or my brothers' friends, who I grew up with. I think they'd be like, 'Blegh.' Also there's part of me that's like, I don't want anyone to see this movie. Just kidding." The Social Network star later admitted that she was tired of filming racy sex scenes for the franchise, telling Interview magazine in 2016, “Well, we’re not having actual sex. But I’ve been simulating sex for seven hours straight right now, and I’m over it.” Scroll down for more candid commentary from actors about going full frontal:

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Lukas Gage

"I guess I’m a little more European in my thoughts on nudity right now. I’m not begging to take my clothes off, but I’m comfortable with it," he told The Hollywood Reporter in February 2023. "I want to keep a sense of truthfulness, too. If there’s a scene where I’m having sex with my boss, it’s gonna be pretty f—king weird if I have clothes on. Those scenes are so mechanical in their filming anyways. There’s nothing sexy about a director telling you you’re thrusting weird."

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Theo James

"I just wanted it not to be distracting," James explained in December 2022 about his surprising White Lotus moment. "He needs to be [a] regular Joe because the scene’s not about the pee-pee, it’s about power play in sex [and] whether he did it deliberately or whether it was an accident." 

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Dakota Johnson

During an interview in 2015, the Texas native discussed how the cast filmed the NSFW moments in 50 Shades of Grey.

"The scenes in that room were definitely the most vulnerable scenes in the movie," she told Glamour. "But it was a very closed set — my mom told me that it's my right to ask for that during intimate scenes, so it seemed like [costar Jamie and director Sam Taylor-Johnson and I] were in this little world together."

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Jesse Williams

After his full frontal moment in Broadway's Take Me Out went viral, Williams sounded off on the enthusiastic response.

“It’s a body, once you see it, you realize it’s whatever, it’s a body! I just have to make it not that big of a deal," the Grey's Anatomy star said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in May 2022. “I’ve learned in my minutes of theater, don’t try to read into it because it just creates more insecurity. I’m told it’s quite insane. It’s the first [time], so I’ve got nothing to compare it to and I won’t be scared of anything after this.”

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Olivia Wilde

"You know, the funny thing is, I'm nude in this film, but you don't see all the goods and it's a silly scene. It's not even a sexy scene," the Don't Worry Darling director quipped to E! News in 2013 about her appearance in Third Person. "You pretend like you are skinny-dipping. You know you just shut your eyes and run."

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Bradley Cooper

According to Cooper, his nude scenes in Nightmare Alley immediately felt like a "big deal" to him, saying on KCRW's The Business in January 2022, "I remember reading in the script and thinking, 'He’s a pickled punk in that bathtub and it’s to story. You have to do it."

The Silver Linings Playbook star noted that he agreed to take on the challenge because there was "nothing gratuitous" about what was portrayed. "Because the content of what the movie is, what we were exploring, in order to do it in a real way, it demanded that we’d be naked emotionally and soulfully," he continued.

Cooper, however, was thrown for a loop when he had to strop down in front of costar Toni Collette. "I can still remember that day just [being] naked in front of the crew for six hours, and it was Toni Collette’s first day," he recalled. "It was just like, ‘Whoa.’ It was pretty heavy."

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Anne Hathaway

“These are people who have no trouble taking their clothes off — in a way their bodies are their currency,” Hathaway shared with Vogue in October 2010 about filming nude scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal in Love and Other Drugs. “But they’re terrified of exposing their vulnerability – of becoming emotionally naked.”

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Ben Affleck

“I mean, you do so much frontal, you’ve been so naked, and yet you were overlooked,” the director joked with Sacha Baron Cohen about his NSFW scene in Gone Girl for Variety Studio: Actors on Actors in January 2021.  

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Alexandra Daddario

During an interview with Men’s Journal, Daddario candidly addressed the response to her full frontal moments in True Detective and The White Lotus.

"I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, but for example, when True Detective came out and I was naked on the show, and it was huge for my career and the phone was ringing and I got some work off of it, I think that I hadn’t been that aware of my sex appeal prior to that," she shared in December 2022. "I tried not to take it too seriously. I really love acting, in my heart I’m just a theater nerd, and I sort of took that and said, ‘This is good for my career’ and embraced it."

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Chris Pine

"There's certainly a double standard, because nobody would talk about it if it were a woman," the Star Trek star told E! News in October 2018 about the buzz around them stripping down in Netflix's Outlaw. "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."

He added: "I don't really give a s—t, quite honestly. I'm kind of embarrassed it actually has to be a thing to talk about."

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Rooney Mara

"I just do what I'm told, when I'm told," Mara explained to Interview Magazine in 2013 about filming full frontal scenes for Side Effects opposite Channing Tatum. "If the character should be nude in the scene and it makes sense and I trust the person making the film — and I regret my decision to trust you now that I know you more — then I don't see a problem with it. I certainly don't want to be involved in anything that is gratuitous, but I don't think the human body is something to be ashamed of."

The New York native concluded: "Every other person on the planet has the same parts as I do. So seeing them shouldn't be a huge shock to most people." 

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Daniel Radcliffe

In 2017, the Harry Potter star joked about his love for nude scenes due to his performance in Equus. “Dude, there was no opportunity for fluffing,” he told Playboy. “I was onstage for the entire show, and I ran around naked for 10 minutes in a scene that’s about sexual failure and horse blinding."

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Harry Hamlin

"My most embarrassing moment was the opening night of Equus, when I had to go full monty in front of 1,600 people for the first time in a very cold Geary Theater!" the L.A. Law alum exclusively told Us Weekly in January 2023.