Alert – As Jennifer Lawrence shocks fans with full-frontal nude scene in No Hard Feelings, FEMAIL reveals the OTHER A-listers who have sensationally stripped down on-screen – without the help of a body double – from Helen Mirren to Margot Robbie

Nude scenes have always been a taboo topic in Hollywood. While some actors have stood firm in their decision not to undress on camera, other actors don’t mind showing off their goods, or at least are willing to do it for the right role.

Most recently, Netflix viewers were shocked to see that Jennifer Lawrence went full-frontal for a scene in the comedy No Hard Feelings.

In the movie, Lawrence stars as Maddie Barker, an Uber driver and bartender who answers a Craigslist ad from Percy’s (Andrew Barth Feldman) parents to help him have some romantic experience before he goes off to college.

The scene shows Lawrence’s character Maddie going skinny dipping with Percy before their clothes are stolen.

A naked Maddie then runs across sand to aggressively reclaim them from a group of pranksters.

While many wondered if the Hunger Games actress used a body double for the comedic scene, she revealed that she eagerly filmed the scene herself. 

‘Everyone in my life and my team is doing the right thing and going, “Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?”‘ she told Variety.

‘I didn’t even have a second thought. It was hilarious to me.’

Most stars don’t do nude scenes for their own amusement. Instead, many find it to be a rite of passage for their acting careers or feel it is the only way to accurately portray a role.

Nudity was extremely common in films from the early 70s considering certain censorship rules hadn’t been put in place.

Even though Hollywood started to increase censorship as time went on, directors found creative ways to push the boundaries and still incorporate the nudity they had in their artistic vision. 

Here are all those actors who brought that vision to life themselves instead of by using body doubles. 

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don’t Look Now (1973)

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie starred in the heart-wrenching thriller Don’t Look Now.

The two actors decided to strip down for a particularly emotional scene. After losing their youngest child, they console each other by making love.

The scene was so authentic that rumors began to circulate that they had unsimulated sex. 

‘It was clear to me they were no longer simply acting. They were f***ing on camera,’ executive producer Peter Bart wrote in his 2011 book.

In fact, Christie’s boyfriend Warren Beatty flew to London to demand the scene be cut from the film.

However, Sutherland has shut down Bart’s claims. 

‘Peter Bart mendaciously writes that he witnessed the shooting of the love scene in Don’t Look Now and saw sex,’ he told The Hollywood Reporter at the time.

‘Not true. None of it. Not the sex. Not him witnessing it. From beginning to end, there were four people in that room. [Director] Nic Roeg, [DP] Tony Richmond, Julie Christie and me. No one else. Wires under the locked door led outside, and this was 20 years before video monitors.’

He also explained that there was nothing particularly sexy about the filming process. 

‘They’re idiots,’ the Canadian-born actor told reporters in attendance. ‘There were two cameramen in there. The takes were 15 seconds long, maximum. “All right, Julie, hold your head, OK, turn your head a little to the side….”‘

Christie, however, paints a different picture. 

In a new documentary on Nicolas Roeg, Christie, now 75, says the director ‘managed to get the extraordinary thing that happens when you are making love.’

‘I loved the squirming bits and all those things you don’t see,’ she said on a BBC4 Arena programme.

‘It was just flesh squirming and rolling and touching, and God I thought it was absolutely lovely.’

She added that the scene captured the moment that ‘you know you don’t exist, the other person perhaps doesn’t even exist. It’s just bodies that are existing.’

‘It wasn’t even necessarily sexy, what it was – it reminded you of making love.’

Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren in Caligula (1979)

Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and practically the entire cast of Caligula had to film nude.

The erotic historical film depicted the rise and fall of the Roman Emperor Caligula through a series of sex scenes and orgies.

To McDowell, it wasn’t a huge deal considering censorship rules weren’t as strong during the time period. 

‘I used to be naked all the time, because the censor suddenly allowed nudity in films in the late 1960s, and it was almost as if it was written into my contract,’ he told Telegraph UK.

Mirren had a similar sentiment. ‘Does it really matter? I was doing nude scenes [from] the first moment I started doing movies… It was the era… It seemed to be nothing to get your knickers in a twist over,’ she told People in 2015.

However, it doesn’t mean Mirren necessarily enjoyed the act. 

‘I always hated it. Always. It’s not fun to be on a film set and be one of the only ones naked,’ she said of filming nude scenes.

Fortunately, she felt much more comfortable on the set of Caligula because everyone was nude.

‘It was like showing up for a nudist camp every day. You felt embarrassed if you had your clothes on in that movie,’ she said.

Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet (1986)

Blue Velvet was an especially scandalous film at the time of its release. 

Isabella Rosselini plays a lounge singer named Dorothy who is having an affair with sadist Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). When Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) discovers their secret, she begins to become intimate with him as well.

Frank catches them and ends up beating them both up. By the end of the film, audiences sees the toll the abuse has taken on her nude, bruised body.

This raised concern from reviewers about Rossellini’s safety while filming.

However, the Italian American actress spoke out, claiming she found the concern insulting. 

‘That is suggesting that David Lynch used me or photographed me badly to ruin my reputation. I resent that because first of all I think it would hurt his feelings,’ she told The New York Times in 1986.

‘But also it takes away from me, from my judgment. It says that I’m so helpless that a director can make me do something I don’t want to do. I’m not a kid. I understood the film. It’s beyond that – I loved it.’

She also opened up about how important it was for her to maintain her natural appearance while appearing nude on screen. 

‘I didn’t want to lose weight or be lit in a protective way or do three weeks of intensive exercise. That would have made me so embarrassed, to try to look better, to try to titillate. Then I could never have done the scene,’ she explained.

The actress then proceeded to express that due to all the nudity and violence involved in her scenes, only a select few crew members were allowed to be on set during her scenes. 

‘Some of the crew might have thought that I was not very friendly,’ she shared. 

‘But when you have to do things that could be embarrassing, people tend to make a joke to relax you.

‘I was afraid maybe someone would say the wrong thing, the thing that would freeze me. By doing a part like that you expose yourself to people’s thoughts, you know, “Is she suffering; is she going through hell?” Or “She’s eating like hell; isn’t she on a diet?” I knew that was going on and I avoided it very carefully.’ 

She posed nude again for Madonna’s book Sex, but faced backlash after her comments following Blue Velvet.

‘[Madonna] wanted it to be openly bisexual. So I agreed to be in it, but I did say, especially after Blue Velvet that I didn’t think I had it in me to do another naked scene. I was so persecuted. There were so many complaints,’ she told Vulture.

She added: ‘Either they’re scandalized and say “why did you do it” or they say someone is exploiting you or you’re an exhibitionist.’

‘There’s a puritanical streak. There are many things I loved about becoming an American, but this is the part I can’t quite figure out. What is the logic? How does it work?’

Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke in 9 ½ Weeks (1986)

Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger both exposed plenty of themselves for the steamy 1986 film 9 1/2 Weeks.

The movie was based on a memoir of the same name during which a career woman (Basinger) finds herself getting lost in a sado-masochistic relationship with John (Rourke).

Kim described her audition for the role as grueling, claiming she had to act out one of John’s fantasy of being a prostitute begging for money. 

While she was hesitant about taking on the role after that, director Adrian Lyne aggressively pursued her for the role and she eventually acquiesced.

However, the filming process was just as agonizing as she had anticipated.

Lyne demanded that they not interact outside of filming and while on set, he would pull Rourke aside and whisper directions in his ear – causing Basinger to feel isolated.

At one point, he even claimed Basinger needed to be ‘broken down,’ which lead to Rourke slapping her in the face. 

Because of the dynamic enforced between the costars, there was plenty of tension between them. 

‘We shot in sequence, and in the beginning, when the character was sweet, [Rourke] was very sweet, too. Later, when the movie started getting strange, he stayed in character,’ she told The New York Times at the time.

‘I am not usually an actress who stays in character. But in this, as it started getting stranger, I found my character staying with me. I couldn’t wait to leave her.’

The way Rourke and Lyne treated her had a deep impact on her psyche and even took a toll on her marriage.

‘Mickey was egging me on – I hated him sometimes. I got confused. I didn’t know who I was after a while. My husband and I had a bad time during this movie,’ she said.

‘I think the strains of it – the realization of the material being done, would have hurt any partner,’ she said. ‘I totally emotionally neglected him for a whole year. I just didn’t have anything left to give, and you can’t do that in a relationship.’

While the process was tormenting for her, she was proud of the strength she pulled out to get through it. 

‘I think if you are an artist of any kind, if you want to try to excel, there is pain. It would be hard to say if I’d do it again, but finally I would have to say yes,’ she explained.

‘I didn’t always agree with the way Adrian handled things. There were times I was ready to quit, when I wondered if he weren’t a sick human being, if we weren’t all sick to do this, but in the end I faced my own fear and came through it.’

Ironically, Rosselini – who starred in Blue Velvet – also had auditioned for this role, but was thankful to have not landed it  

‘After seeing the film, in a way, I was happy I was not chosen,’ Rossellini revealed to Vulture. ‘I thought that Adrian’s films were a little exploitative.’

She continued, ‘I thought it was not very deep. His films are a little exploitative. I was lucky not to be chosen. Sometimes God helps me. I may not help myself, but God does.’

Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirl (1995)

Elizabeth Berkley went from starring in Saved By The Bell to shocking fans with her scandalous role in Showgirls (1995).

Berkley played Nomi, an aspiring Las Vegas showgirl who bared it all in order to make it to the top.

Fans were stunned to see the beloved Saved By The Bell actress shed her innocent image and strip down, but Berkley didn’t think it was as big of a deal.

‘It’s a little weird but it’s a role, it’s a part. I was transported to a different person so the nudity factor wasn’t something I concentrated on. It was just an essential part of telling the story,’ she said as per NY Daily News.

She explained that she had to practice her choreography topless because it had a different feel than performing when clothed.

She also helped her fellow chorus girls gain the courage to rehearse topless together.

Unfortunately for Berkley, the film was a massive flop, she caught most of the flack and it tanked her career. 

‘Of course it was disappointing that it didn’t do well, but there was so much cruelty around it,’ she told People.

‘I was bullied. And I didn’t understand why I was being blamed. The job as an actor is to fulfil the vision of the director. And I did everything I was supposed to do.’

Kate Winslet in Titanic (1997), Mare Of Easttown (2021) and others

Kate Winslet sent pulses racing when her character, Rose, allowed Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) to paint her like one of his French girls – in the nude.

Throughout her career, Winslet has felt it was important to represent her body on the big screen.

In fact, Titanic was far from the first film that she stripped down for.

She also appeared naked in the films Heavenly Creatures (1994) and Jude (1996).

The actress didn’t stop there either. After Titanic, she filmed nude scenes for movies like Holy Smoke (1999), Iris (2001) and The Reader (2008).

While speaking about why it was important for her to do nude scenes, she told The Sun, ‘I look like the people that walk down the street. I don’t have perfect boobs, I don’t have zero cellulite — of course I don’t — and I’m curvy. If that is something that makes women feel empowered in any way, that’s great.’

She also recently admitted to Vogue that she was ‘consistently told I was the wrong shape’ and that she’d have to ‘settle for less’ because of it.

She also felt it was part of her duty as an actress. 

‘On a deeper, subconscious level, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve allowed my stupid self to be so naked on screen,’ Winslet said. 

‘It’s partly because I do believe that it’s right for the character and it’s right for the story but it’s also knowing that not many people do that, actually — and not just that, but I’m a normal person.’

In her late 40s and after three babies, Winslet continues to show off her body on the big screen.

For Mare of Easttown, the actress refused to let the director Craig Zobel edit out ‘a bulgy bit of belly.’

‘She’s a fully functioning, flawed woman with a body and a face that moves in a way that is synonymous with her age and her life,’ she said to The New York Times in 2021 of the decision.

She also admitted at the time that she may be pumping the brakes on nudity on camera.

The British actress said, ‘I think my days are getting a little bit numbered of doing nudity. I’m just not that comfortable doing it anymore.’

‘It’s not even really an age thing, actually. There comes a point where people are going to go, ‘Oh, here she goes again.’

However, two years later, she revealed she stripped down again for her upcoming film Lee

‘You know I had to be really f*cking brave about letting my body be its softest version of itself and not hiding from that,’ she said to Vogue, referencing her nude scenes in Lee. 

Salma Hayek in Frida (2002) and Desperado (1993)

Salma Hayek’s experiences filming nude scenes haven’t always been pleasant.

One particularly upsetting scene for her was when disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein insisted that she be naked for a particular scene in Frida (2002). 

‘I agreed to do a sex scene with another woman. And he demanded full-frontal nudity,’ she penned in an op-ed for The New York Times.

She revealed that she had a panic attack when it came to film the scene, writing, ‘For the first and last time in my career, I had a nervous breakdown.’ 

‘My body began to shake uncontrollably, my breath was short and I began to cry and cry, unable to stop, as if I were throwing up tears… It was not because I would be naked with another woman. It was because I would be naked with her for Harvey Weinstein.’

While her first experience filming a nude scene wasn’t nearly as detrimental, she also described the experience as traumatizing. 

She had to bare it all while on camera with Antonio Banderas for the film Desperado (1993).

‘We were going to start shooting, I started to sob,’ Hayek said on Dax Shepherd’s Armchair Expert podcast, ‘I don’t know that I can do it. I’m afraid.’

While Banderas was compassionate it didn’t ease her nerves. 

‘He was an absolute gentleman and so nice. but he was very free. It scared me that for him, it was like nothing,’ she said.

 ‘I was not letting go of the towel. They would try to make me laugh. I would take it off for two seconds and start crying again.’

She had a hard time getting lost in the character because she kept thinking about how her family would react. In fact, for the film’s premiere, she lead them out of the theater for that scene. 

‘I walked out of the premiere when they played it and I took my brother, father, and mother with me. I didn’t want any of them to see it. They were happy to walk out right away and then we came back again. I don’t think they noticed anything,’ Hayek said. 

Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) 

Jason Segel revealed that his nude moment in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) was actually inspired by a real-life event. 

‘I got broken up with while naked,’ he revealed on The View.

He said that he was waiting ‘like Burt Reynolds’ at home for his girlfriend to return from the airport, but when she got there told him ‘we need to talk.’

‘And it’s never ‘we need to talk, I love you so much,’ he said. 

‘Like this breakup commences. What didn’t make the movie which also happened was like halfway through I was like, okay, I need to go get dressed.’

‘It turns out picking out an outfit for the second half of a breakup is like the worst outfit you’ll ever pick out,’ Segel said.

‘The whole time I thought as soon as she walks out this door, I’m going to write this, and it worked out.’

Segel’s experience filming the scene was equally comedic.

While speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Nicholas Stoller explained the effort it took for Segel to look ‘normal.’ 

‘He was mainly nervous that his wiener look normal, which in a very cold stage is hard to achieve,’ he told the outlet.

‘So he had set up a private room where he got his wiener looking normal. And Kristen and I just waited and he’d yell, ‘Okay, I’m ready,’ and then I’d say action and he’d run out to do the scene.’

Michael Fassbender in Shame (2011)

Michael Fassbender took on a salacious role as a sex addict in the film Shame (2011).

Being sex addict, the actor had to film full frontal nude shots. Since he worked with Steve McQueen previously in the 2008 film Hunger, he developed strong faith in the director for his nude scenes.

‘I trust him implicitly. It’s like, “Put the camera wherever you want. I don’t care,”‘ Fassbender told BBC America that December.

 Like most actors, he did feel uncomfortable initially but was able to work past it.

‘I was self-conscious, for sure, but it was something I had to get over very quickly,’ he told The Guardian. ‘I had to be on the ball and not thinking about those things.’ 

He also felt that the way sex scenes have been filmed in the past were unrealistic.

Because of the uneven expectation for women to strip down over men, he said he dove head-in to filming nude in his mom’s honor. 

‘It just baffles me: Women can parade around naked all the time, but the guy conveniently has his pants on,’ Fassbender told Vulture.

‘I remember my mom always complaining about that to me, saying, “This is such bulls***, it’s always the women who are naked!” So I did this one for you, Mom!’

Margot Robbie  in Wolf of Wall Street (2013) 

Margot Robbie bared it all on the big screen for her breakout role in Wolf of Wall Street in 2013.

She was initilly hesitant to strip down but her team told her, ‘If there was ever a time in your career to do nudity, this was it,’ she recalled to MTV. 

‘It’s this project with this director. That’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make to have this opportunity.’ 

Even after director Martin Scorsese told her she didn’t have to go full nude if she didn’t feel comfortable with it, she decided she wanted to film the nude scene as written.

She shared that she felt the role called for it and wanted to do it justice.

‘I think nudity for the sake of nudity is shameful. If they’ve put it in just so that a girl gets her top off, then that’s disgusting. And you can always tell,’ she told The Telegraph.

‘But I also think it’s disgusting when someone would have got naked in real life, in the film they conveniently leave their bra on, or hold up the bed sheet. Seeing someone being choreographed into being covered up irritates me just as much.

‘The whole point of Naomi is that her body is her only form of currency in this world.

‘So when Marty [Scorsese] was trying to help me out, and said in the scene where she seduces Jordan perhaps I could have a robe on, I said she wouldn’t.

‘She has to be naked. She’s laying her cards on the table.’

That didn’t mean the moment came easy to her. In fact, she even admitted that she had to libate in order to get through filming. 

‘I’m not going to lie, I had a couple of shots of tequila before that scene because I was nervous… very, very nervous,’ she shared during the 2013 BAFTA: A Life In Pictures recording.

The moment was just as uncomfortable for her family to watch. In fact, she said on the Screen Time podcast that her brother wouldn’t speak to her after watching the scene.

‘One of my brothers didn’t speak to me for three months afterwards – not because he was mad, he was just, like: “I just need a minute before I can consider you my sister again!”‘ 

Ben Affleck in Gone Girl (2014)

Ben Affleck fans had been waiting patiently for the moment that he would expose himself on the big screen, and with Gone Girl (2014), that day had finally come.

The film follows Nick Dunne after he becomes the primary suspect for his wife’s Amy (Rosamund Pike) disappearance. 

As the mystery unfolds, the truth about Nick and Amy’s not-so-perfect relationship comes to light.

Before the film released, Affleck teased that there might be some ‘brief nudity.’

He explained to MTV, ‘This is a warts and all movie. It can have no vanity. You have to see the naked underbelly of this character.’

Once the movie released and the secret about his featured member got out, he joked fans would have to pay extra to see the goods.

‘The penis is in there! It costs extra. It’s IMAX penis! You’ve gotta pay 15 bucks to see it in 3-D. It looks better in 3-D,’ as per E! News.

Chris Pine and Florence Pugh (Outlaw King, 2018)

Chris Pine and Florence Pugh bared it all for the 2018 film Outlaw King.

Pine made headlines at the time for going nude but he was surprised at the reaction he garnered versus Pugh. 

‘I bear the “full monty” and it got a lot of attention, but what did strike me most is that Florence Pugh bares everything too and no one commented,’ he told The Muse of the film.

‘I am not sure what that means. Either people think they can’t comment, or everyone expects women to get naked. Either way, it’s double standards.’

The reason also because it wasn’t Pugh’s rodeo of stripping down.

She filmed naked for her breakout role in the 2016 film Lady Macbeth. While some actresses shy away from filming nude, Pugh admitted that it helped boost her confidence.

‘I loved the fact she was naked all the time. At that point in my life I had been made to feel s**t about what I looked like and that film was perfect, there was no room for me to feel insecure,’ she told ES Magazine.

In addition to the Outlaw King, she most recently filmed naked for three scenes in the 2023 film Oppenheimer.

Her co-star Cillian Muprhy, who also had to bare it all, explained why the nude scenes were ‘vital.’ 

‘I think they were vital in this in this movie. I think the relationship that he has with [Pugh’s character] Jean Tatlock is one of the most crucial emotional parts of the film. I think if they’re key to the story then they’re worthwhile,’ he told GQ.