Batman in the shower, hobbits in the buff, and a straight-up sex-crazed sci-fi horror
classic — you'll never believe what a difference a nude scene can make.
John Hughes' filmography consists largely of movies that pushed the edges of the PG-13
rating. His bread and butter were family comedies and coming-of-age stories, but The Breakfast Club
proved that he wasn't afraid to push things into more adult territory. This 1985 classic scored
an R rating almost entirely because of the dialogue, which contained not only a healthy
dose of profanity but also frank discussions about sex, violence, and other mature topics.
"When you grow up, your heart dies."
"Who cares?"
"I care."
As it turns out, The Breakfast Club featured some R-rated nudity as well. As part of an
unfortunate trend in comedies of that era, the movie was going to have a scene that featured
a naked woman for pretty much no reason whatsoever. This naked woman in question
was going to be a faculty member viewed through a peephole that looked into the
girls' locker room. Fortunately, producer Michelle Manning and stars Molly Ringwald
and Ally Sheedy called out Hughes for the gratuitous and completely unnecessary scene,
and he never filmed it. The change went a long way in helping The Breakfast Club stand
out among its peers at the time. As a bonus, it means the movie hasn't aged too badly, either.
The 2012 ensemble comedy Wanderlust follows married couple George and Linda,
whose fancy New York City life falls apart when the economy goes kaput. Looking for a fresh start,
they find themselves at a commune full of wacky characters; comedic hijinks ensue. Said hijinks
involve Linda taking part in a topless protest that is captured by television
cameras. All you can see in the movie is the pixelated version on the news report — but,
depending on who you ask, Jennifer Aniston was going to bare all for the scene.
A media source at the time alleged that Aniston shot a version of the
scene where she is fully topless, and that the unedited shot was included in the first
cut of the film. The source explained that Aniston later begged to have those shots
removed. The actor's publicist denied the claims, insisting that the version of the
scene in the final movie was the one that was always intended. Either way,
having Linda's breasts front and center would have no doubt diminished the shock of seeing
the blurred-out version during the news broadcast, which was essentially the punchline of that scene.
Given that on-screen female superheroes haven't always been portrayed in the most positive light,
it's easy to assume that someone might have planned for Wonder Woman or Harley
Quinn to get naked at some point in the DCEU. However, it was actually Ben Affleck's Bruce
Wayne who stripped down in a deleted scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
"Booyah."
The scene in question is a shower sequence, during which the camera reveals Affleck's bare
behind. While this scene is included in the film's "Ultimate Edition" home video release,
it didn't make it into the original theatrical cut. Even while trying to be the edgier,
more mature counterpart to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DCEU remained in
PG-13 territory right up until Birds of Prey and Zack Snyder's Justice League came along.
For a movie that's supposed to be a hard R sex comedy, it's surprising that you'll find almost
no actual nudity in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. A woman shows off an exposed breast during
the speed dating scene, but that's about the extent of it. There is even a scene in which
the primary protagonist, Andy, is watching adult movies donated to him by work pal David,
and it still shows very little skin. That being said, one of the performers in those videos did
bare all — but it was in a scene that wouldn't be seen until the movie's unrated version.
Stormy Daniels, who subsequently became a household name due to the alleged
connection to a certain president, is a real-life adult film actor and the
woman most prominently seen in David's videos. According to writer and director Judd Apatow,
that scene was taken from one of Daniels' existing films. But she was also brought in
to shoot a scene specifically for The 40-Year-Old Virgin in which Andy fantasizes a conversation
with her — with Daniels fully topless the entire time. The whole scene was cut from the original
theatrical version but restored for the unrated version later released on DVD and digital.
Before finding his sci-fi niche, Denis Villeneuve directed a run of
well-received thrillers that culminated in 2015's Sicario. Revolving around the
war between Mexican drug cartels and the FBI, Sicario features an impressive cast,
led by Emily Blunt as Special Agent Kate Macer. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
both she and co-star Benecio Del Toro were the most frequent targets of praise for the film.
"You're not a wolf. And this is a land of wolves, now."
Villeneuve is no stranger to having women play central roles in his films. In fact,
the director said that Sicario screenwriter Taylor Sheridan was asked to change Blunt's
character to a man, but Villeneuve advocated for Special Agent Macer to stay as Kate Macer.
It's unclear what would have happened to the nude scene in the script if Kate had
been changed into a male character, but it was axed anyway when Blunt pushed against it.
Of course, a scene of gratuitous nudity doesn't seem to fit in a film that was
otherwise praised for avoiding attention-grabbing gimmickry.
Few musicians have enjoyed a more successful crossover into acting than Lady Gaga. In 2019, she
not only landed an Oscar for her duet "Shallow" with her A Star is Born co-star Bradley Cooper,
but also earned a best actress nomination for her work in that same movie. In 2021, Lady Gaga
earned more raves for House of Gucci. Critics were lukewarm overall on the movie, but called out her
performance as a particular highlight. This Ridley Scott film tells the story of renowned fashion
brand Gucci and the struggle for control between Maurizio Gucci and eventual ex-wife Patrizia
Reggiani, culminating in Patrizia spending decades in prison for hiring a hitman to kill Maurizio.
House of Gucci takes plenty of liberties with the real story for the sake of a more entertaining
final product. And those liberties would have been taken to an unnecessary extreme if it included a
sexual relationship between Patrizia and Pina, a psychic who helps Patrizia with her murder plot.
It seems that Lady Gaga decided that Patrizia and Pina should hook up even though there is nothing
to suggest the two women had such a relationship in real life. Scott obliged, even going so far as
to film a steamy sex scene with the two actors — but he didn't end up using it in the movie.
Natalie Portman left little to the imagination in her performance as Alice in the intense 2004
relationship drama Closer. In particular, one scene between Alice and Clive Owen's
Larry in a private room of a strip club has Portman wearing very little. It actually does
make sense in the context of the scene that Alice never fully strips naked;
she's toying with Larry and using his attraction to her to emotionally manipulate him. But Portman
did film a version of the scene where Larry gets to see everything — which
might well have lessened her power over him and changed the whole story's dynamic.
Ultimately, Portman had a change of heart and decided she didn't
want to be fully nude in the movie. Closer director Mike Nichols honored her wishes,
and only included the shots of Alice in which she is at least partially covered. Nichols even
claimed that he destroyed the footage of Portman baring all, so there was no chance of it ever
being stolen and leaked onto the internet. In an interview for a book about Nichols's career,
Portman had nothing but praise for how he treated her while making Closer, calling
Nichols a feminist and saying he never acted inappropriately towards her. Portman added that
she can't make that same claim about other older male mentors she has had in the film industry.
There's no arguing that one of the most enduring images of the sci-fi horror classic Alien is
Sigourney Weaver's Ripley wearing only a tank top and underwear. But she doesn't spend much time in
that state of undress; Alien is too busy building tension to waste much time ogling the cast.
"I can't lie to you about your chances, but… you have my sympathies."
The original script and storyboards for Alien, however, planned for a whole heap of sex to
take place within the tight confines of the Nostromo. One of those scenes was partially
filmed during Weaver's screen test for the movie. It was reasoned that the crew of the ship would
often sleep together, not only as a means of bonding but also out of sheer boredom. However,
other than the aforementioned screen test, none of the sex scenes or nudity ever made it off the
page. The result is that Alien ended up being almost entirely sexless, something that not
only set it apart from Scott's next sci-fi film, but also many of the horror movies of the day.
Anyone who has seen the 2022 film Babylon might find it hard to believe that anything was left
on the cutting room floor, especially in terms of nakedness. After having earned
the clout to do pretty much whatever he wanted after the success of Whiplash and La La Land,
filmmaker Damien Chazelle used that creative freedom
to direct a three-hour epic about the unchecked debauchery of 1920s Hollywood.
Early buzz about Babylon suggested that an NC-17 rating was in the cards,
and it's not hard to see why. But it would seem that there were scenes that were shot — and
subsequently deleted — that might have pushed the rating board to give it the
stricter classification if they'd been included. According to Jean Smart, who plays fictional film
critic Elinor St. John in the movie, she was in a scene that involved four naked men. Smart
explained that the men in question were just playing football in the background of the shot,
which feels like nudity included for the shock factor more than anything else.
Sometimes characters appear naked during a film more for comedic purposes than titillation. And
that was going to be the case with the planned nude scenes in the Lord of the Rings movie
trilogy. Anyone who has read J.R.R. Tolkien's original novels will know that the books did
actually contain some nudity here and there. Yet there isn't so much as even a bare behind
in the entire runtime of the three movies that comprised the original movie trilogy.
While appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to discuss their Rings-centric podcast
The Friendship Onion, actors Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd revealed that
audiences almost had a chance to see their naked hobbit butts on screen.
"Here's the thing: there was almost nudity, in the movies. Me and Dom."
"Hello."
Boyd explains that co-screenwriter Phillipa Boyens was planning a scene
in which Merry and Pippin were dropped by Treebeard. They slowly shed clothing
as they careen off of Treebeard's branches; by the time they land,
they're fully nude. The hobbits often acted as the slapstick comic relief in those films,
but there's little doubt that this scene might have been a step too far.
Sofia Coppola established that she was a force to be reckoned with very early on
in her career. The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation comprised a stellar one-two
punch of debut feature film efforts, the latter of which earned Bill Murray
his first and thus far only Oscar nomination. But Coppola's third movie, Marie Antoinette,
proved more divisive, with critics split on the effectiveness of marrying the story
of the titular 18th century queen with a modern soundtrack. They also took issue with the movie
featuring actors who not only spoke English, but didn't even attempt European accents.
In her performance of Antoinette, Kirsten Dunst was generally praised,
with Roger Ebert calling her "pitch-perfect in the title role." With Coppola, Dunst had
a lot of trust in the director's guidance — up to and including allowing her to shoot
Dunst's bare breasts. But Dunst's comfort with being topless on camera proved short-lived,
and she ended up vetoing that take for use in the movie.