I’m a firm believer that more male actors should be naked on screen, and they should also do away with prosthetic penises altogether (unless it’s necessary for the story!). So, to honor our real movie heroes, here are a bunch of actors who actually showed their real hot dogs in mainstream movies. You know, for scientific purposes. Enjoy!
1.
Michael Fassbender got naked several times in Shame (2011). He jokingly claimed that he only did it to appease his mother, who rightfully kept complaining about the lack of male full-frontal nudity in films: “Women can parade around naked all the time, but the guy conveniently has his pants on. I remember my mom always complaining about that to me, so I did this one for you, mom.” Later on, George Clooney actually beat Michael at the Golden Globes and used his acceptance speech to talk about how big Fassbender’s penis is, saying, “I’d like to thank Michael Fassbender for taking over the frontal nudity responsibility that I had. Really, Michael, honestly, if you can play golf like this with your hands behind your back…go for it, man! Do it!”
2.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson danced in slo-mo while naked in A Million Little Pieces (2018), which he co-wrote with his wife, director Sam Taylor-Johnson. It was the first scene they filmed for the movie, and even though Aaron said he was “hesitant,” it was also “therapeutic” and important: “It just felt like the right tone. Sam and I talked at length about how we try and show the audience in the first act, or the moment you see him, as a broken shell of a man and someone who’s completely lost his way and lost all control of their inhibitions.” Aaron also had a nude scene in the movie Nocturnal Animals (2016), but director Tom Ford had to cut around it because his dick is apparently so big that it would have been too distracting.
3.
Jude Law has gone full-frontal quite a few times in the theater and on screen, most recently in the survival thriller Eden (2024). Director Ron Howard talked about how the characters were “described as nudists,” but he obviously couldn’t consistently show full-frontal nudity throughout the entire movie, so he had to be selective with the shots. Ultimately, though, because Jude had performed so many nude scenes in the past, Ron said that doing it again for this movie wasn’t an issue at all: “It was there in the script, and he always embraced the idea.”
4.
Daryl McCormack has several sex scenes with Emma Thompson in the underrated Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022), but he doesn’t go full-frontal until the last few minutes of the movie. To prepare for everything, Daryl talked about how he, Emma, and director Sophie Hyde all got naked together on the last day of rehearsals. They basically played a game of “strip storytelling” where each person would talk about the parts of their bodies they liked and disliked (tattoos, scars, etc.), and it ended with everyone in the nude: “Before we knew it, the three of us were naked, and it felt like we never even took our clothes off in the beginning. There was a level of comfort I’ve never experienced before.”
5.
Jack O’Connell was nude multiple times in the intense prison drama Starred Up (2013). He talked about how they shot one particular shower scene in February in Belfast, but the water couldn’t be heated because that would create steam, which would fog up the camera’s lens. He joked about the situation, saying, “Hopefully that might add an excuse” when audiences see him naked. Still, he said he was “pleasantly surprised with the final product.”
6.
Tom Hardy has filmed quite a few nude scenes in the past, like in Bronson (2008), Stuart: A Life Backwards (2007), and Sergeant Slaughter, My Big Brother (2011). He’s never one to shy away from full-frontal nudity. For example, while filming the British drama Taboo (2017), he commented on how his character’s loincloth was too much clothing, and if he had it his way, his character would have been naked throughout a lot of the show: “You’re lucky there was a loincloth because I didn’t want one. It’s not a period drama until someone gets naked and covers themselves in blood. At least you’re showing willing.”
7.
Eric Balfour partook in real, unsimulated sex throughout the erotic drama Lie with Me (2005). Before reading the script, his co-star, Lauren Lee Smith, was told that the role required “not only nudity but on-camera, live sex,” and she thought it was a joke. Then she read the script and realized what was actually required for the role.
8.
Cooper Koch famously got naked during a shower scene of the anthology series Monster (2024), but he also showed every inch of himself a few times in the underrated horror film Swallowed (2022). Though he had no hesitations about taking on the role, he said his friends and family were definitely more concerned: “I was all in from the beginning. You know, I’m not at the place in my career yet where I can pick and choose, and, like, I really just want to take the opportunities I can get. … Like, my uncle, who’s my lawyer, was like, ‘Are you sure you wanna do this film? Like, when you have kids, like, they might find this.’ And then my mom was concerned. And then I was just like, ‘No, I’m doing this.'”
9.
Barry Keoghan had several minutes of onscreen nudity at the end of Saltburn (2023). In the scene, his character dances throughout an English manor in his birthday suit, but Barry stated that he was more nervous to dance on screen than be naked: “Without sounding cocky, it wasn’t the nudity. That was fine for me. It was the dancing. I don’t really dance. I don’t know how to move my hips certain ways, and your body has to go in certain directions and stuff like that. The dancing scared me. So once I was comfy with the dance, the rest was easy.”
10.
Jack Reynor filmed his nude scene on the last day of shooting on Midsommar (2019). The whole sex scene took about 15 hours to film, and he actually “advocated for as much full-frontal as possible” because he thought it was really important to his character and the story in general: “I saw an opportunity to take a character who exhibits a lot of archetypal alpha male characteristics, like male toxicity, who has all of that stuff stripped away from him through the course of the film and then ultimately finds himself in this situation, which is kind of the ultimate humiliation and a role reversal between him and [Florence Pugh’s character] Dani. …It was always intentional to have the full frontal. That was what Ari [Aster, the writer-director] wanted to do, but I was really saying, ‘We got to do as much of this as possible.'”
11.
Chris Pine had a quick, far-away nude shot in Outlaw King (2018). He talked about the double standard for male and female actors when filming nude scenes, saying, “There’s certainly a double standard because no one would talk about it if it were a woman, and I would say, ‘Why? Because women are expected to do it, and the men aren’t? And why aren’t men expected to do it, and why haven’t men done it before? Does it show vulnerability? Does it exhibit this vestigial kind of puritanical shame over the human body and human intimacy?'” Upon seeing an online article about his penis after the movie premiered, which read, “Chris Pine’s Dick was the Biggest Star of TIFF,” Chris said he “felt sorry for” and was “embarrassed” that this was a thing people were talking about.
12.
Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal both got naked in the Mexican coming-of-age movie Y Tu Mamá También (2001). They shared several intimate scenes with each other and co-star Maribel Verdú. In real life, both men were in their early 20s while filming, but they were playing 17-year-olds in the film, while 31-year-old Maribel Verdú was playing a 28-year-old. But those sex scenes served a huge purpose, as Oscar-winning writer-director Alfonso Cuarón said: “Putting teenagers in situations that include sex will always be attractive to a certain audience. But I hope Y Tu Mamá También transcended that, because we set out to not be American Pie. We wanted the sex scenes to get a point across about these characters and about the social elements we were playing with, like class and the conceptions of masculinity that these characters have.”
13.
Kevin Bacon is completely nude during the shower scene of Wild Things (1998). The scene was originally much different, with Matt Dillon’s character walking in on him, and then the two men start kissing. They even filmed this moment, but unfortunately, according to Kevin, the financiers cut the kiss because they “didn’t like the idea of men making out. They felt it went too far. They felt it wasn’t right.” Kevin still wishes they had kept the scene in the film, but Matt is happy it was removed, saying, “I was relieved when they got rid of that scene. Kevin seemed pretty attached to it, though! One twist too many, man. One twist too many. Kevin’s a married man. I’m wondering why he was so eager to do the gay scene?”
14.
Jason Segel wrote his own full-frontal scene into the script of Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008). This nude scene is also one of the reasons why Harrison Ford agreed to star alongside him in Shrinking, a separate show Jason co-wrote and co-created. Apparently Harrison had never heard of Jason before, so he was instructed to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall to “get a sense of what this guy does.” Afterwards, he texted Bill Lawrence, another co-creator of the show, saying, “I’m in. BTW, good dick.” Jason said he got that text message printed and framed.
15.
Finally, Ewan McGregor has been nude in tonsssss of movies, like Velvet Goldmine (1998), The Pillow Book (1996), Young Adam (2003), and Trainspotting (1996). Why? Simply put, he loves being naked in real life, and he thinks movies should reflect that: “Being naked is something that happens in either end of the day for me, and if you’re lucky, somewhere in the middle as well. And I don’t understand why it’s an issue. I don’t take my clothes off in movies because I want to flash my body around. I took my clothes off for movies because I’m an actor. I believe the movies that I make say something about the world and therefore they should reflect human instincts and natures and desires. A big part of that for us is our sexual life and romantic life.” A true icon!
I’d like to personally thank each of these actors for their dutiful service. Bye!!!!!!!
