Getting naked on the set
Updated: Dec 15, 2021
Back in 2019 my colleague Andrea found a casting for a body double for “Watchmen” series for HBO. She told me that I should apply for it, while I was working as a stand-in for “Mr. Mercedes” with Brendan Gleeson and Harry Treadaway. I met both of those actors, who were very nice!
I applied for this gig and started googling what “body double” was. It was a person who was paid to be naked on the set, and had to match one of the actor’s bodies closely. Example: Rebecca Van Cleave stood in for Lena Headey during the walk of shame shoot in “Game of Thrones”. That scene where Cersei was naked in front of 500 people. That’s what body doubles do, and they get paid very good money.
Day after I applied, I got a call from an intimacy coordinator while I was on set of “Mr. Mercedes”. I quickly grabbed my cell and ran inside one of the fake sets. Alicia, the intimacy coordinator, was very sweet and informed me that production want to hire me and that they’ll be sending out the paperwork via email. She also informed me that it would be a closed set, which was amazing. I was so nervous! I was excited that I got booked, because I was two months behind on my rent, but at the same time very anxious because I would be naked in front of strangers.
I woke up at 2 am to drive 5 hours to Atlanta a week later, checked in with an AD and waited in the honeywagon. Around 1 pm the wardrobe brought in pasties for my nipples and bikini area, along with the robe and then I went to hair & makeup. Inside I met Tom Misen from “Sleepy Hollow” and Sara Vickers from “Endeavour”. They were both very humble and friendly and I took pictures with them. Quick tip: DON’T post anything from the set that can sabotage the company. Do it after the episode comes out!
During H&MU I had a thousand dollar wig put on me, and had very little makeup on. I went to my honeywagon and waited some more.
It was almost 3 in the afternoon when me and another body double, Jesse, went on set. I remember seeing stand-ins walking off set, and the first team (Jesse and I) went to stand on our spots, which were marked. I was nervous, my adrenaline was kicking in and I thought ‘Well, I’m broke and this pays well.” As soon as “last looks!” were called, I had to take off my robe and second later I was naked in front of 12 people.
They started shooting and doing a few takes, along with directing both Jesse and I- where to look, how to move, etc. Also, there was a body double for Dr. Manhattan and the guy had to be covered in blue paint.
After some time the director yelled “Cut. Print!” and we were done. But I was not off the hook yet. AD told both Jesse and I that we need to wait in our honeywagons, just in case the director wants to do additional footage. So we waited and waited until it began to turn dark. AD came to get us around 7 pm and we were finally let go to go home. I went to H&MU and they took everything off. I was back to being me and drove home, while getting Jesse’s Instagram on the way. He was a very nice guy, married with children who always wanted to be an actor and this was a nice start for him as well.
For those of you who are interested in seeing “Watchmen”, go to episode 4 and you’ll see me and Jesse. It’s a great episode!
After being on set COMPLETELY BARE-ish in front of people who I never met and who didn’t judge me since it was part of the job, I realised- if I can do that, then I can conquer anything! I could do this again and again, because my confidence was better now. I wouldn’t always be a body double, but if it came to sex scenes or nude scenes and if it was done tastefully- why the heck not!? I was beautiful and so was my body, and I needed to flaunt it before I got old.