Bradley Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch and the golden age of nude men

Hollywood’s male stars aren’t scared of full-frontal nudity anymore.

Benedict Cumberbatch fully clothed in his Oscar-nominated role in The Power of the Dog. Picture: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

Male full-frontal nudity, once the stuff of art-house films, is going mainstream. Bradley Cooper and Benedict Cumberbatch are trouser-free in Oscar contenders and Sebastian Stan bares it all. The sight of naked male stars can shock in ways that female nudity no longer does, making for the kind of edginess Hollywood loves.

Pantless footage – featuring actual private parts or a prosthetic – is being used for comedic effect (like the fake anatomical item issued to Evan Handler on the HBO Max series And Just Like That …), or to underscore a character’s vulnerability (Paul Mescal in Hulu’s Normal People). Sometimes it serves the plot (Steve Zahn – really a stunt double with a prosthetic – panicking over a health scare in HBO’s The White Lotus) or delivers artsy realism (Oscar Isaac in HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage).

Full-Frontal Man reflects several forces overtaking Hollywood right now. He represents a cosmic rebalancing of the scales as the entertainment industry attempts to address sexism. He’s an argument that streaming platforms, largely free from ratings rules, can play to male and female audiences with new abandon. And he’s a path to free publicity with the potential to light up social media, as happened when Cooper’s comments about his nude bathtub scene in the film Nightmare Alley went viral.

Engineering a nude scene in a movie or series involves conversations between stars, directors, producers and intimacy co-ordinators around issues such as room temperature and the destruction of outtakes. Movie stars appearing nude include Cumberbatch in Netflix drama The Power of the Dog, but lesser-known actors do it, too, as in recent episodes of HBO’s Euphoria and The Righteous Gemstones. Nude shots can be so fleeting some viewers don’t even catch them, though their mere presence allows filmmakers and showrunners to claim points for subversiveness.

In Pam & Tommy, on Disney+, Stan plays Tommy Lee, the Motley Crue drummer married to Baywatch star Pamela Anderson. Lee’s private parts appear in close-up – the production used a prosthetic – and, in a surreal twist, the anatomy even has a speaking role.

Many naked men and women wear a prosthetic over their private parts during filming, says Amanda Blumenthal, an intimacy co-ordinator who works on sets to ensure the safety and comfort of cast and crew. With their straps, the costume pieces are obviously fake to everyone who sees them in person, she says, yet the world witnesses what seems like real nudity thanks to ever more realistic post-production effects.

During shooting, male nude scenes can be handled less delicately than scenes with female nudity, Blumenthal says. “The tendency is to assume that men are less self-conscious about their bodies, which I don’t think is necessarily true,” she says. Fear of unflattering camera angles is a top concern for all actors, she adds.

It is an unwritten rule that people on set don’t stare, and that they turn their backs as soon as cameras stop rolling to give actors privacy, Blumenthal says. The discomfort can go in the other direction, she adds, with some crew complaining about actors who stay disrobed between takes.

Performers who do nude scenes are told sensitive footage will be destroyed or kept in a secure facility, says intimacy co-ordinator Chelsea Pace. At least 48 hours before a nude scene is filmed, she says, a legal agreement spells out what the actor is being asked to do, what he or she will wear or not wear, the number of cameras and monitors, and who will have access to the footage.

Makers of prosthetics say male nude scenes in movies and shows are boosting business.

“Producers will just call me up out of the blue and say, ‘Well, we kind of need a penis’,” says Matthew Mungle, a makeup artist and go-to for filmmakers seeking private-part prostheses. He created a prosthetic for actor Simon Rex in last year’s Red Rocket, a film about a washed-up porn star, though he says he has no idea whether it was used. When asked at a film festival, Rex declined to say.

The latest wave of nude scenes has put male actors under the same kinds of pressure to appear naked that female actors often face. And there are the attendant body image issues.

“Everybody is sexually objectified and that, weirdly, registers as equality today,” says Juliet Williams, a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Eva Husson, a filmmaker who uses full-frontal nudity to convey intimacy in her film, Mothering Sunday, calls the practice an important counterbalance to pornography. Her period film features a very naked Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles in The Crown), opposite Odessa Young, who spends even more of the movie unclothed. Men often earn accolades for such scenes while it is seen as routine for women to bare all, Husson says.

“It really irks me when I see male actors lauded for their bravery and it’s considered completely normal for actresses,” she says.

Nude scenes can lead to opportunity, and some notoriety, for actors. Ansel Pierce, who recently appeared naked in a bathroom on Euphoria, quickly became known on social media as Toilet Guy. Jumping on the moment, he posted a TikTok video denying the use of a prosthetic. Soon after, he landed a small, clothed role in a romantic comedy.

Pierce, 22, says his nude scene reflects the authenticity craved by Generation Z and millennial audiences.

“I’m very confident in my body,” he says. “Every part of my body is a part of me as an artist.”

The Wall Street Journal