You need to slow down the scene frame-by-frame to see the nudity properly. Rosario was 24 when she appeared in the movie. This was her second nude scene and her first and last full-frontal.
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| Is she wearing a merkin (patch-on)? |
KW: Have you done nude scenes before?
RD: In He Got Game actually I was topless, but not anything like this.
KW: Was the nudity called for in Alexander's original script?
RD: It wasn't written in the original script that way. Oliver brought it to that point through several weeks of rehearsal in Morocco. That's something I was very impressed by. He was extremely passionate and completely open to getting ideas from everybody. We were all shocked by the end result because it was so different from the shooting script. It totally moves differently than it did in the script. But it's the best way the story could have been told.
KW: How comfortable did you feel shooting the film's nude scenes?
RD: Well, it wasn't how it was originally. How it is now is not how it was originally, so even that, I have no idea where it would have gone had I been with another director. I mean, it probably would have been with a very different idea in mind. But we all worked and collaborated with each another to get to that point. I mean, it was sort of like a simple thing where she was in the background and she drop her [clothes] and they talk from across the room and that's it. And it ended up being something where now they're clashing physically and there's a knife and it's intense, and it's a very very different thing and that came from rehearsing quite a lot and going what's the best thing that we can do that sort of juxtaposes this relationship from all of the other ones and explain what their relationship and dynamic could have-must have-should have been like in the context of the rest of his life. And I thought it actually worked quite brilliantly, and so more looking at it now, sort of stepping back and going, wow, I'm naked,' but in the moment it didn't really feel like that, and it wasn't on the spur of the moment. It was very decided what it was going to be by the time we got there- maybe not me hitting him as much as I did and him getting a black eye- but we did think most of it out. You really want me to hit you, Colin? Sure, cocky boy.' It was really amazing, and it wouldn't have worked if we had done it any other way. I mean, during that time it's not like she would have been a shy, demure kind of woman. The context and the censorship that we look at it with now just didn't exist then and it worked really well, I think, to convey the spirit of her character, that she is so young and vulnerable and scared and completely not in a good position to have a fight with him or with anyone. She should have been a handmaiden who just said yes,' but she didn't, and that's a very powerful position to have and character to play, especially with someone who must have been probably about fifteen years old. It's just really incredible to play someone who continues to have that spirit all of the way throughout their marriage over the next few years, regardless of the fact that she doesn't give him an heir. Because she didn't have the leverage Olympia had and she still kept that spirit, which is brilliant.
KW: How does a director suggest that you be naked?
RD: It wasn't just suggested. We worked it out how it was written, and it just wasn't working. We had to introduce my character and show a relationship in a very short period of time. It turned out that the best thing was for her to be naked and fighting, and for there to be a knife. There couldn't be any moment for shyness, because that didn't exist back then.
KW: Do you regret shooting that scene?
RD: No, I don't regret anything. I think it's absolutely amazing. It wasn't exploitative. I have a great trust of Oliver. I knew it was going to at least look beautiful. I'd love to work with him again. I might have been naked but everybody's blood, sweat and tears went into this movie.
Rosario in an interview with The Guardian March 2012 :
Rosario Dawson is not like other Hollywood actors. Consider this: she's 32, and in her 20s decided she'd had enough of being judged on her looks, so took to wearing enormous sweatshirts to auditions.
"I'd perform my ass off, and the casting directors would be like, 'You are perfect for this role, but can you wear something a little less shapeless?'" Her manager would bargain with her. She could wear a roll-neck jumper, he said – but could it at least be a fitted one? "I'm like, 'Ugh, fine', but these stupid conversations needed to be had, because unfortunately, don't believe what they tell you, there's very little imagination in Hollywood." She hoots with laughter.
It annoyed her when casting directors asked to see her in more revealing clothes, she says, because she was naked in the film Alexander, "so go to any crazy, sick website and you'll be able to look at it in slow motion if you like". Does that bother her? "No, not at all, my point being: then don't complain, 'We don't know what she really looks like.' Are you kidding?! Do your research. 'She looks a little fat right now'," she says, recalling a message that filtered down from some rotten, deluded film executive. "Really? They're called breasts … There was definitely a period for a couple of years where I rebelled against it. It probably cost me a lot of really big jobs, but I was just so angry."
