"[For] Domino ... Keira Knightley sat down with the director and bargained with him over what parts of her body she'd expose ...
She explains, 'It was one of the most extraordinary conversations of my career ... It was, 'I'll give you both [bleep] but you're not having my [bleep].' He said 'Fine, done it's a deal.'
'I don't mind about the boobs, not the butt ... I'm a woman. There's no reason to it.'
Knightley had to pick a butt double for revealing lap-dancing and sex scenes in the biopic.
Keira, 20, said: 'Tony brought three girls in to choose from. It was hard not to laugh but I didn't want to offend anyone.'
'I decided to be very businesslike. They all had very nice bottoms and I chose one.'"
The Daily Mail (9/28/10)
" .. what looked like a naked shot of [Jessica Alba in Machete] has been found to be fake and new photographs show [she] was actually wearing underwear, which was later digitally removed.
The Latino star told Scarlet magazine in February that she would never bare all for the cameras, saying: 'No, I'll never do a nude scene. I can act sexy and wear sexy clothes but I can't go naked.'
So it's no surprise that the 29-year-old enlisted some help from digital experts to remove the white underwear that she's shown wearing in the original shower scene.
The Sin City star continued: 'I think I was always very uncomfortable about the way my body developed, and I remember my grandmother would freak out and throw a towel over me if she saw me wearing just a bra and panties.'
'I come from a very Catholic family so it wasn't seen as a good thing to flaunt yourself like that. I can handle being sexy with clothes on but not with them off.'"
"Actress Olivia Wilde had to odd task of choosing the digitally enhanced nipples that would appear on her character in upcoming comedy The Change-Up - because she never actually went nude for the cameras.
The Hollywood beauty had to strip down to shoot a love scene with co-star Ryan Reynolds, and preserved her modesty by donning a pair of pasties, used on-set to cover up her nipples.
However, after filming wrapped, producers noticed that Wilde's pasties were clearly visible - and they had no choice but to use computer-generated imagery (CGI) to make the sex scene seem as real as possible.
And Wilde was given the final say on which nipples to use for her character.
She says, 'I wasn't actually naked but now appear to be naked because... in that scene Ryan Reynolds is supposed to be covering them (with his body) and he moved and so the pasties were in the movie and so they had to paint in nipples using CGI.'
'And I got to approve the nipples! They sent me an email saying, 'Please review nipple cover shot one through seven and decide which one is most like the original.' I don't know what he (producer) was using as source material... but I think it's pretty close.'"
Once she's famous enough to be interviewed every young British or American actress has to prepare her own carefully-worded response to the question "So, when are we going too see those [bleep]?" Because that isn't considered something inappropriate to ask in a press junket or on a talk show. If you read movie blogs you see these stories often. Is the reader or viewer of their imagination thinking something like this: "This Emma Stone is new. When can I expect to see her act sexy in sexy clothes? Film journalists, I leave this question to you. I'll wait here with my spreadsheet open?"
Keira Knightley may not like her "bottom." Jessica Alba says she's a Catholic with sexual hang-ups. Olivia Wilde may not care whether she shows her nipples. She's appeared nude before. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if there's a thought process where a female lead can't take her top off in a romantic comedy because research shows it affects her likability but David Dobkin's careless enough with his mise-en-scène that he didn't get a single usable take without "visible pasties" (What's his opinion on that being an anecdote of choice for Wilde? It makes him sound incompetent) so CGI'ing some areolae in at the risk of turning the audience against her was the only option.
It doesn't interest me to know what reasons an actress would have for not wanting to do a nude scene or what criteria she'd have for appearing in one. Maybe I'd prefer it if it were for personal or artistic reasons rather than because they thought it was going to affect their career if they did or if they didn't but they can base it on whatever they want. ("Thanks, O.W." You're welcome, ladies.) I don't think more or less of an actress either way and I couldn't name a movie I care about that was significantly affected by this issue. It's always something like Domino, Machete or The Change-Up / Striptease or Swordfish. The decision isn't interesting to me. What's interesting to me is the response to it.
There's a line of progression through those articles. You want an actress to do a nude scene. She refuses. You don't replace her because it's more important to have the actress than it is to have her [bleep]. What now? Choose Your Own Adventure, David Dobkin.
To cover the bottom half of the screen with your hand because it wouldn't be gentlemanly to glance in the direction of her pasties, turn to Page 2.
Page 2: You're fired. Please leave the set immediately. Your directing career is over.
To use a body double, turn to Page 3.
Page 3: A sexually curious 14-year-old boy watching your movie notices that the actress' head isn't in the same shot as her [bleep]. He's also committed the complexion, size and clothed shape of her [bleep] to memory through diligent use of the rewind button and none of them match what he's seeing now. SC14YOB yells "This is bullshit!" SC14YOB's mother runs in, sees him with his pants around his ankles and takes away his viewing device. SC14YOB no longer sees it as a good thing to flaunt yourself like that. He grows up to be a Never Nude.
But first, three years later the sequel comes out. At 17, he's now your target audience. He and millions like him boycott while wearing cut-offs in protest instead of buying a ticket. The sequel is a massive failure. Your directing career is over.
To digitally alter your film, turn to Page 4.
Page 4: The actress marries a fan with exacting standards as to nipple placement. She's a Catholic so on their honeymoon she tells him "I'll give you both my [bleep] but you're not having my [bleep]." They negotiate and come to an understanding but when she takes her bra off for real he gasps and, refusing to believe his eyes, pulls out a ruler only to find that yes, there's a 0.4 millimeter difference between her [bleep] and what he saw in the movie. He backs away in disgust. She tries to explain "I'm a woman. There's no reason to it." He says "I have no idea what you're talking about. Keep those freakish things away from me" and runs off to get an annulment.
Depressed, she becomes a binge-eater and when she can't get another acting job after she balloons up to 115 she sues you for all you're worth. Your directing career is over. You try to post a resume online but all the job sites are down as the first step in her ex's paradoxical anti-computer hacking war.
To have the actress announce that a body/digital double was used, turn to Page 5.
Page 5: Thousands of cineastes around the country are unable to make any sense of your eagerness to call attention to your own deception. They could let it go. There are much more important things to worry about but they feel it has to be addressed. They start blogs to discuss it and similar issues. On these blogs they begin movie reviews only get to caught up in tangents for multiple paragraphs at a time. The Internet collapses in on itself under the weight and shuts down, so you can't properly promote the movie. It fails. Your directing career is over.
To find a way to take the [bleep] shots out altogether and avoid the hassle, turn to Page 6.
Page 6: Congratulations. You've won. To move on to Head of the Family already, turn to Page 7.
Page 7: Why is so much attention given to nudity? I'm not a sociologist ("Oh no?" Don't be sarcastic, ladies) and I'm not going to pretend to be one. I'm not going to bore you with a lot of ignorant guesses about its place as a social construct. Why is so much attention given to nudity in film? That I will bore you about (briefly) because I like to pretend to be a critic. Nude scenes are considered exploitative in anything made for popular entertainment. I would say that this is misguided or at least the idea that that has to have an entirely negative connotation is. My counterexample would be Head of the Family.
Head of the Family has two main exploitation elements. The first is, well, this:
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| Myron (J.W. Perra) |
The second is that Jacqueline Lovell was willing to appear partially or completely nude for 70-75% of her screen time. The budget was so small that they had to shoot it in ten days, this
counts as one of the most elaborate sets, no one could produce a real $100 bill to use here
and when they needed food for the diner scene they had to use
Cheerios? They had the Myron make-up and Jacqueline Lovell. That was enough.
Why? Every "popcorn movie" has exploitation elements. "We blow a lot of stuff up in this" is the second-most popular one right now behind "This character was in a comic book, remember?" The difference is in how it's executed. Nudity, explosions, name or brand recognition or really big heads only feel(s) exploitative when there isn't anything else there.
Head of the Family is entertaining enough that you'd never think "That poor Jacqueline Lovell"
(you may still think "That poor J.W. Perra"), which is a lot more entertaining than it should've been. I don't normally go by the idea that if the filmmakers and actors had enough fun making something you'll have at least some fun watching it but it it holds up here. Lovell is a big part of that.
She's charming. She's funny. Her accent doesn't sound the way any Southerner has ever spoken but I don't care. Now I think maybe Southerners should sound like that.
Her performance is better than any Jessica Alba's ever given and in ten years when someone asks (and don't doubt that someone will) "Do you want to watch Head of the Family or The Change-Up?" even if I still haven't seen the latter I'll choose the former. And not because it's the one with real nipples. Maybe because the other one's a Ryan Reynolds body-swap comedy but [bleep] will have nothing to do with it.
Unanswered Questions
None. One flaw the movie does have is the amount of exposition. There are at least two or three scenes that go on longer than they should because the writer for some reason thought "I don't know if the audience will believe that this Overmind with a head as large as the rest of his body couldn't .. " and took care to explain why he couldn't when maybe he should've stopped himself a word sooner than I did and understood that if we're going along with the idea of Myron we're not here to quibble.
The best I can come up with is "Where is Knob's Hollow supposed to be located?" but Raleigh and back is within an afternoon's ride so it must be North Carolina.
IMDb Keywords
Reference to George Bernard Shaw
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| Bare Chested Male Bondage |
Memorable Quotes (since IMDb doesn't have any)
"That is, without question, the most fuckable young lady I ever seen outside a magazine. Hell, don't bother me she's a retard."
"I can't let her go. It's a Grand Passion, that's what it is. Bein' with her .. Shoot. It's like fuckin' a firecracker."
"They got all them real goods. They got like oil and gas, coal. You know, all that flammable shit."
"Watch the PJs, you big gorilla."
"This is some kind of weird bullshit."
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