How these movie stars feel about getting naked on screen

 Lena Dunham

"It's funny when people compare the nudity to something like porn, because for me it exists in such a different space, one that connects to the historical context of women in the art world," Dunham added.

Well, she's not the only one to have a very poetic explanation as to why she doesn't take issue with nudity on TV or in movies, but her extraordinarily high comfort level, as seen in Girls, certainly did nothing to end the discussion about how much is too much, why female nudity is so much more prevalent than male nudity, whether that's unfair, is any nudity really necessary...Etc.

But the politics of it are one thing. Then there are the actors themselves, the ones who actually have to decide whether taking their clothes off is right for them. Some stars tried it once, or a few times early on, and decided they were over it for whatever reason. And yet others have seemingly had no qualms about showing skin for their art, so long as it makes sense, leaving it up to the hoi polloi to make a big deal about it.Or, even when there is a qualm, they shake it off and power through.

Gaby Hoffman

Transparent star Gaby Hoffman comes from the Dunham school of being comfortable running around naked.

"I grew up in a very naked world," she explained to the U.K.'s Telegraph last year, with regard to her character's tendency to go full-frontal on the Emmy-winning Amazon dramedy. "I'm a very naked person. I just don't think it's a big deal."

Hoffman said that it was hard for people to believe that the pubic hair she put on full display on the show was hers, but again she shrugged. "No, that's me. I'm a human, I have hair."
She added, "But when people want me to talk about whether I think the bush is back, and if that's great for feminism, I'm like, 'You know what's great for feminism? Respecting everybody's own choice.'...I don't give a s--t if people want to wax everything off. If it makes you feel comfortable, by all means, do that. This is how I feel comfortable."

Then there are the actors who may not consider themselves "naked people," but they're willing to go where the role takes them.

Nicole Kidman

"I don't mind being naked," Nicole Kidman, who was nude on camera as early in her career as 1991's Billy Bathgate and as recently as the still in-progress Big Little Lies on HBO, told W magazine in 2012.

"Maybe as I get older, and now after having had a baby, it might be different, but I enjoy not letting my issues get in the way of a performance," the Oscar winner said. "Once I start putting all my little insecurities in my mind, I'm not actually acting. Then it's about me—and it should never be about me. It should be about the character."

Penélope Cruz

 is another Oscar-winning actress whose films have continued to include their fair share of sensuality—but she was at first self-conscious about having done a topless scene in her big-screen debut, Jamón, Jamón, unsure about whether it was the right choice for her career. Ironically, the role put her on the map, but people were rather hung up on the nudity.

"I did not handle it at all well," she wrote in The Sun in 2012. "I had a strong reaction to anything sexual or sensual for a while. I cut my hair short. I didn't do any love scenes—not even kisses—for many years.

"I was told by everyone, 'You are risking your career,' but I followed my heart. My mother was at ease with what I had done and inspired me to go on to do
other things."

So basically, Cruz was comfortable, but the bloated reaction made her question her choices.
Meanwhile, also in 2012 Cruz posed topless for the cover of Vogue Paris alongside a clothed Meryl Streep. "It was the most interesting love scene I had ever done," she quipped to Harper's Bazaar.
"'Liberating' is a good word to use," Jennifer Aniston called the act of stripping down for the comedy Wanderlust, talking to ET Canada. 

Kate Winslet of Titanic

Then there's Kate Winslet, who has proclaimed that she hates nude scenes—but she hasn't taken pains to steer clear of them. Rather, she's done half a dozen.

"Listen, make no mistake, I just get on it. I just go in and say, 'Oh f--k' let's do it.' And boom," the Oscar winner told V Magazine in 2011. "If you complain about it or procrastinate it's not going to go away. Its a profoundly bizarre thing to do. As actors you talk about it all the time. You can literally be tangled in sheets, and you turn to the other actor and say, 'What the f--k are we doing?' Dear Mum, at work today I had so-and-so's left nut sack pressed against my cheek. It's sort of unethical if you think about it in those terms."

 Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter

Daniel Radcliffe, who left Harry Potter behind in a crumpled pair of jeans on stage in Equus, begged off a possible nude scene in A Young Doctor's Notebook, recounting in 2013, "I think my comment was, 'I got naked in three films last year, please can I not?' At some point everyone's going to start assuming I'm an exhibitionist."

Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren announced her retirement from nudity at 70, after doing her fair share—including in 2003's Calendar Girls.

"It seemed to be not a thing to get your knickers in a twist over," she recalled acting in the 1960s and 1970s, talking to Alan Cumming in a 2015 interview on CBS. "I was doing nude scenes [from] the first moment I started doing movies. It was the era."

Helen Hunt

Helen Hunt was the talk of Sundance when she got naked for the first time in her career at 45 for The Sessions. Asked later about all the fuss, she told IndieWire, "Any hesitation I had about the nudity, I think what I thought was, it's getting late. You know what I mean? It's getting too late in my life to care about the small things. It's getting too late to not be brave, to not live my life fully, to not try to be an artist. Trivial things like how nice your hotel room is, or if you have to be naked for a while, they fade away."

Michael Fassbender's full-frontal nude scene in Shame made for the longest-running (yup, pun intended) award season joke that year, with even George Clooney making a crack at the Golden Globes.

Fassbender told The Hollywood Reporter that he didn't have time to worry about it, saying director Steve McQueen kept the set intimate and the schedule brisk. "We shot it in 25 days, so I kind of had to get over it and get on with it," the actor said.

Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie knew that she risked the possibility of a certain amount of unwanted attention when she signed up for The Wolf of Wall Street—but she felt the story merited her nude scene and ultimately the film was worth it.

"[Nudity is] different in this day and age [i.e. not like when Helen Mirren was first starting out], because of the internet. It was like, if I do this there will forever be YouTube clips of this, there will be slow-motion versions," the Australian star mused to Britain's LOOK magazine in 2014. "It's not just the repercussions for myself–my brothers and my grandparents have to deal with that. So it's not something to be taken lightly."

She also knew that Martin Scorsese wasn't a director who made creative choices without purpose.

"There are scripts I pick up and say, 'There's no reason why she's taking her clothes off, that's just stupid, it's just nudity for the sake of nudity.' That I do not agree with, ever," Robbie said. "But when the nudity is warranted, I don't think there's anything shameful in that. If it's justified and the character would do it, then it should be there."