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Jessica Chastain agreed to 'Scenes From a Marriage' nude scenes on the condition that Oscar Isaac 'show the same' as her

Jessica Chastain agreed to 'Scenes From a Marriage' nude scenes on the condition that Oscar Isaac 'show the same' as her
  • Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac star in HBO's "Scenes From a Marriage."

  • Both actors appear fully nude during the series.

  • Chastain said her only condition for going nude was that Isaac do so too.

Jessica Chastain said her one condition for going fully nude in the new HBO limited series "Scenes From a Marriage" was that her costar, Oscar Isaac, also shed his clothes on screen.

"I said to Hagai [Levi], who wrote and directed the series - in the very beginning, I said, 'I'm comfortable with all the nudity, but any part of my body that you show, you're going to have to show the same with Oscar,'" Chastain said during an appearance on "The View" with Isaac on Friday.

"So, like, there's a shower scene that I have in episode two, and you see my body. And so now, like, you see his body," she added. "So for me, though, I wanted it to be balanced."

Isaac, who plays Chastain's husband on the show, said he hadn't been aware that his nude scene made it into the final cut of the show until after the episode aired.

"You get sent the stuff to look at, to be like, 'OK, I'm fine with that,'" Isaac said. "But I saw it on a laptop, quite dark, and I didn't notice what was happening down there. And so it was a surprise when I started seeing all these things of, like, 'It's full-frontal.' I was like, 'No, what are you talking about?' And I saw it, and clear as day on the big TV there, it's there for everyone."

Chastain has spoken widely about the role of women in contemporary American cinema and her displeasure with some forms of nudity on screen.

During a 2018 interview with Kyle Buchanan, she said: "I have no issues with nudity, especially in a lot of European cinema that I adore, but I find that in American cinema, the idea of nudity has always bothered me. I realized why: For me, I'm uncomfortable with nudity when it feels like it's not the person's decision to be naked, when it's something that has been put upon them. In a way, I see that as like a victimization."

She continued: "It trains an audience that exploiting someone in their body should be normal for nudity, when I think the opposite. When people are completely in control of their decisions, that is a really exciting thing. I love the human form - male nudity, female nudity, I'm all about it. I had to get to that place where, for me, it was my decision."

Chastain and Isaac's "Scenes From a Marriage," an adaptation of the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman's 1970s series, has garnered praise for its strong acting and writing since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September.

In a review of the show, Insider praised the pair's chemistry and commitment to their roles but said the show was "irresponsible" and "vilifies women."

Read the original article on Insider