Alicia Vikander Recalls Nude Scene Where She Didn’t Feel ‘Protected’: ‘That Was Not Right’

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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It’s difficult to believe that intimacy coordinators are a relatively new function of a film or TV set. With love scenes and nudity onscreen, coordinators’ roles are to make sure that actors feel safe and secure while filming.

Yet Alicia Vikander recalled to Harper’s Bazaar UK that she didn’t always have that experience during productions. Vikander, who next stars in Olivier Assayas’ “Irma Vep” TV series, said coordinators “should have existed at the beginning of my career” to hopefully curb uncomfortable encounters.

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“I’ve been in situations that were not fine, where I didn’t feel I was protected,” Vikander said.

The “Tomb Raider” star described one instance of being on set where “everyone was busy doing their own thing and, in the middle, you have an actor who sits there naked for a couple of hours.”

She continued, “And someone is supposed to arrive with a robe, and they don’t. It comes afterwards — [the knowledge that] that was not right. I should have been looked after.”

Vikander has stripped down for love scenes in “Tulip Fever” and Netflix’s “Earthquake Bird,” but the actress still called onscreen nudity “never easy” to film.

“The only thing that can’t be improvised is an intimate scene — you have to make choreography and stick to it. It’s the worst thing ever to do those scenes,” Vikander said. “I am very comfortable with my body and I’ve done quite a bit of nudity and sex scenes, but it’s never easy.”

Vikander previously told Harper’s Bazaar UK in November 2019 that she tries to do nude scenes in one take.

“I probably did my first sex scene at 20, and it’s always been technical, as it should be; it should never be anything but technical,” Vikander said at the time. “I tell the crew it’s a one-taker. That way, everybody on set is on point, because you have to get it done in one take. Like a dancer, we [choreographed it] the same way.”

The star concluded, “I think that’s the way to do it because then everyone feels comfortable and then hopefully, although it is super strange and uncomfortable, a little magic comes through a lens and people will be convinced.”

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