THIS ROLE REQUIRES NUDITY

I am casting a film that requires an actress to be topless. Nudity is always up to the individual actor – I get that. Clearly this was a big year for nudity; Kate Winslet in “The Reader” is more nude and sexual then called for, but she is fantastic in it and Marisa Tomei is topless with reckless abandonment. Her performance in “The Wrestler,” is Oscar worthy.

Now, I know that it takes a lot of trust to be naked in front of a crew and potentially millions of people, but I really don’t understand actors who - if particularly female - take the most provocative pictures for us casting directors and then in the same breath they won’t consider nudity. These are the same actors who go through breast augmentation: and for what? I would think that they would want to show off their new acquisitions!

Nudity can be a very revealing part of a characters development in a film and to not even read the script and assess the situation seems shortsighted to me. At least mull it over for 24 hours. But I guess in the end if it doesn’t feel right then – don’t do it. But it is acting, pretend, not porn…I mean Kate Winslet was on one side of the porn card in “The Reader” and just because the director is named Stephen Daldry and not Chi Chi La Rue seems a matter of semantics to me. Porn to me is almost medical, nudity or simulated sex (which is often too much for me personally to handle in a film) is required many times and actors who are free of inhibitions and insecurity tend to not be inhibited in their acting. I remember watching Eric Balfour and Lauren Lee Smith in “Lie With Me,” and thinking that they really blurred the lines of soft-porn with pornography but I was impressed that they took the risk to do the role or Kate Dickie and Tony Curran in “Red Road,” where I had to put the shields up over my eyes and was sure that I was seeing full on copulation (that was a condom right?) with a small intimate audience at Sundance.

My point is, that sex in film is all around us and roles for actors who are willing to take risks can give an actor a reputation as a “risk-taker” which can draw attention to them. It can sometimes be negative publicity, but you know what they say, “No publicity, is, NO PUBLICITY!”

Sadly, a colleague of mine passed away this week. Megann Ratzow a casting director based in Portland, Oregon passed away from cancer. She worked with me on “Mean Creek”, “Nearing Grace” and “Rocket Science.” The strange thing about my working with her is that I never got to meet her in person. We just talked on the phone and I knew our productions were in good hands with her working on the local casting. Her dedication and love for casting and actors is what those of us who had the opportunity to work with her will remember.

I guess this is a good time to remind myself that life is tenuous and fabulous I am, no matter how tough times are, lucky to have the opportunity to be doing what makes me happy.