Posted on 12/02/2019 4:45:58 PM PST by Kaslin
What happens on the big screen doesn’t always stay on the big screen.
Actress Emilia Clarke, who rose to fame after starring in HBO’s Game of Thrones, recently revealed that she was pressured to film scenes naked for the show. She’s not alone – actresses from Evangeline Lilly to Jennifer Lawrence have admitted to either crying or drinking in response to filming scenes with little to no clothing.
Speaking on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, the 33-year-old expressed her disbelief when she first landed the role of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, which premiered in 2011.
“Obviously, I took the job,” she said in the podcast released late November. “They sent me the scripts and I was reading them and I was, it was like, ‘Oh, there’s the catch.’”
But finding out about the show’s nudity didn’t stop her.
Right out of drama school, she decided to “approach this as a job” and believed that “if it’s in this script, then it’s clearly needed.” But when she actually began filming the first season, which had a “f–- ton of nudity,” she felt a bit differently.
“I have no idea what I’m doing, I have no idea what any of this is, I’ve never been on a film set like this before,” she remembered. “And now I’m on a film set completely naked with all of these people.”
She would dismiss her feelings, have a cry in the bathroom, and then return to filming. That’s when a co-star, Jason Momoa, stepped in. Momoa plays Khal Drogo, who rapes Daenerys after she’s sold into marriage with him. Later in the show, she develops feelings for him.
“The scenes, when I got to do them with Jason, were wonderful because he was like, ‘No, sweetie, this isn’t okay,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh,’” Clarke said.
She acknowledged that filming nude “is terrifying” and that, during rape scenes, Momoa was even “crying more than I was.”
A more experienced actor, Momoa knew more about what should and shouldn’t happen on set, she said.
“He was always like, “Can we get her a f--king robe? … She’s shivering.’ Like, it was a lot of that.”
Today, she says, she’s a “lot more savvy about what I’m comfortable with.”
“Like I’ve had fights on set before where I’m like ‘No, sheet stays up,’” she said, “and they’re like, ‘You don’t want to disappoint your Games of Thrones fans,’ and I’m like, ‘F--k you.’”
Later on in the show, when she filmed nude for the last time, she said she agreed: “This is mine, they’ve asked me to do it, and you know what, I’m f--king game.”
But even then, she said, “it brings into question, the thing of like, what it is like being under the gaze of people you’ll never meet.”
Sadly, Clarke joins a long list of actresses who have felt similarly. In 2018, actress Evangeline Lilly likewise revealed during a podcast that she was pressured to film nude during Lost.
“I’d had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt I had no choice in the matter,” she recalled. “And I was mortified and I was trembling. When it finished, I was crying my eyes out.”
She added, during a UK interview that same year, that she drank to survive the role in general.
“Good god it was terrifying!” she exclaimed. “It really f***ed me up. Am I allowed to say that? I drank a lot to get through it. I didn’t sleep a lot. All alone, in a totally different culture, in a different country.”
According to a 2016 Maxim piece, other celebrities have admitted to drinking while filming sex scenes, including Jennifer Lawrence, Lizzy Caplan, and Keira Knightley.
Others respond in different ways. While filming a scene in Easy A, Emma Stone said she experienced an asthma attack while Reese Witherspoon, in Wild, had a panic attack.
Both Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman found their Black Swan sex scene uncomfortable. Titanic star Kate Winslet called one nude scene “sort of unethical.” And, following a sex scene in Spring Breakers, Vanessa Hudgens decided she never wanted to film something like that again.
In 2017, Salma Hayek wrote in the New York Times about being forced into a sex scene with another actress – by the infamous Harvey Weinstein.
Going as far back as 2000, one New York Times Magazine piece explored “The Pressure To Take It Off” and reported on actresses discussing their mixed feelings on nudity.
Actress Rosie Perez remembered her first time getting naked on camera came while filming Do the Right Thing.
“It wasn't really about taking off my clothes. But I also didn't feel good about it because the atmosphere wasn't correct,” she said. “And when Spike Lee puts ice cubes on my nipples, the reason you don't see my head is because I'm crying.”
Every actress, in the end, makes choices regarding what she will or will not film. At the same time, Americans should remain aware of how young women can be pressured or manipulated by Hollywood – and support films that value actresses not as mere sexual objects but as human persons.
Netflix favorite word is “f#$k”. Every show produced on that network is full of unnecessary filthy language.
She claimed the film ruined her career. Producers either wanted her to do nude scenes or they shunned her because she had done the sex scenes. She said that she ultimately regretted having done the film.
That’s a possibility also. Good point.
Many films use “body doubles” for scenes that the major stars refuse to do or can’t because of physical defects or scars. If you watch “The Irishman” or even the last “Star Wars” after Carrie Fisher died you can see how CGI images of actors faces can be merged with live action scenes to create “deep fakes” that can barely be detected. Robert DeNiro’s young face was attached to a young truck driver’s body in one scene of “The Irishman” when even makeup could not hide his age. Deep fake nude scenes with body doubles can avoid the issues of humiliating real actors while still packing otherwise bad movies with lots of skin.
Well, at least she's, like, articulate.
Can someone explain the differences between a 21st Century actress and a whore?
Buehler? Buehler?
But they won’t get famous doing movies for Lifetime or Hallmark. There is a price to pay for the fame and fortune they want.
Do men ever get asked to do nude scenes? I remember a movie many years ago, where there was full exposure of Jan Michael Vincent. Otherwise I don’t recall any, but do recall a number of female , though not too many full frontal .
Then she should get a real job. Then she can set all her own rules. /s
Did she think anyone of any gender is actually watching any show because of the deep cultural values and historical interest it contains? Because there isn't any.
Did they hold a gun on her and force her to actually do intercourse with her pardner? I don’t think so.
Unbelievable that this is normal in Hollywood or that her post #metoo account of what happens on set is unbelievable?
The public can help.
Don’t patronize films that do this. Hollyweird will eventually get the message.
upset by her own behavior.,
in game of thrones they did.
when is the last time you ever heard a guy, after the fact, complain like these women do.
the only times i have heard some complaints was if they were asked to do a dangerous scene they might normally use a stuntman for, but needed their face in the shot, or something dangerous. I can see being concerned abput stuff .ike that because it could end their career and life if it goes badly.
She knew what she was getting into. Only now does she voice objection. But no way would she have given up the money.
was it her nude sex scenes that did her career in or her scenes with the naked little kids in that movie, that did her career in?
Sounds like the set crew and the especially the director were pretty unprofessional. I read an interview a while back with Thandie Newton, who is one of the stars of the show Westworld, which has a lot of nudity in it. The interviewer asked her about dealing with all of the nudity , and Thandie replied that she started to like the nude scenes better than when she was dressed, because of how the film crew treated her. The actors had robes hidden from the cameras close to them, and the crew averted their eyes when they weren’t filming. She said it made her mad at other scenes she had done in the past and how unprofessional those sets were.
Damn straight
“HBO, Netflix, almost all of their shows have on average 2 screwing scenes per episode.”
I think of the kids watching. Hillary Clinton got a lot of ridicule for her book “It Takes a Village” but when it comes to the children it’s true. Our media and their watchers don’t realize they’re all part of the village.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.