WWW- With "The Brown Bunny" coming to movie theaters in August, audiences will finally get to see the already-infamous scene in which Chloe Sevigny pleasures Vincent Gallo - apparently unsimulated. Last week, the Wellspring company agreed to open the flick in theaters Aug. 27, after Gallo, who also wrote and directed, spent a year searching for a distributor.
"The sex in the movie is not in any way gratuitous; it is a truly heartbreaking movie," Sevigny said recently. "I am proud of it."
But the flick ups the ante for actresses already pressured to do nude scenes, and who last year saw Meg Ryan receive oral sex in "In the Cut." Ditto Maria Bello in "The Cooler."
Julia Ormond says that every role she's offered is "the girlfriend who gets to take her clothes off on page three."
But many actresses refuse.
"I won't appear naked in a film," says the 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson. "It breaks the spell. You should never give everything away."
Sarah Jessica Parker has a no-nudity clause in her contracts, as well as language forbidding a body double. "Some of my favorite actresses working today feel comfortable doing it and I don't think it diminishes them," she says. "But I've never felt comfortable doing it."
Liv Tyler agreed to show one breast - but not two - on "Stealing Beauty." Sandra Bullock once got so nervous she vomited after a nude scene.
But it's the fear of hurting others that stops some actresses from shedding. Heather Locklear says her parents wouldn't approve. Reese Witherspoon worries for actor-husband Ryan Phillippe. "Every time I see her on screen with another man it kills me," he says.
As for actors, Brad Pitt says he can't watch wife Jennifer Aniston in love scenes, but admits he was turned on when he did a nude scene with Geena Davis in "Thelma and Louise." Jake Gyllenhaal nixed Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers," which was released with an NC-17 rating, yet adds: "I'll show my -- if it helps the narrative. But I'm not going to throw [it] around - just because."
David Duchovny, however, goes all out, as it were: "I hate when people go, 'I'll only do it if it makes sense for the movie.' I like it - the more gratuitous, the better."
