10 Nude Scenes That Surprised Us

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If you went to see Shame and Sleeping Beauty this weekend, you may have noticed: the lead actresses go completely nude. Normally, an actress baring it all for the sake of art doesn't phase us, but you never expect it from certain stars, usually because of their age, physique, or public persona. From former Disney stars to veteran actresses, check out the 10 Nude Scenes That Surprised Us.

Reese Witherspoon

10. REESE WITHERSPOON

Movie: Twilight (1999)
Thanks to Legally Blonde and her numerous rom-coms, it's hard to imagine Witherspoon out of her J. Crew wardrobe and her pink powersuits. But actually, if you look at her resume before 1999, when she cultivated her “America’s Sweetheart” image, Witherspoon’s take on a number of risque roles. Case in point: lesser known thriller Twilight, in which Witherspoon’s character, Mel Ames, strips down with her ex-con boyfriend.

Emily Browning

9. EMILY BROWNING

Movie: Sleeping Beauty (2011)
When we first heard the title of the movie and the lead actress attached, we assumed this was a live-action adaption of the Disney classic. So, it’s a bit of an understatement to say that we were shocked to see the same little girl from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events grown up and in the buff as a prostitute whose shtick is sleeping with men while she’s asleep.

Katie Holmes

8. KATIE HOLMES

Movie: The Gift (2000)
If you start your career off in a classic teen drama, you’re bound to be cuckolded by your girl-next-door image. Hence, Katie Holmes as Joey Potter. Given Dawson couldn’t even get her to give it up, Holmes in sex scenes as Potter caught us off guard.

Kathy Bates

7. KATHY BATES

Movie: About Schmidt (2002)
Bates plays a free-spirited hippie, so in retrospect, we should have seen this one coming. We just couldn’t imagine someone who resembles one of our mother’s friends skinny dipping into a jacuzzi with Jack Nicholson. It successfully made us feel just as awkward as Nicholson’s character when he tried to fight off her sexual advances.

Jennifer Connelly

6. JENNIFER CONNELLY

Movie: Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Her repertoire includes sexually experimental scenes in films like The Hot Spot and Higher Learning, so audiences aren't entirely unfamiliar with the extroverted side of the publicly private actress. Yet, regardless of what we'd already seen, witnessing her brutal nude moments in Requiem for a Dream was like getting kicked in the gut while trying to digest the tragic film.

Olivia Wilde

5. OLIVIA WILDE

Movie: Alpha Dog (2006)
After starring in the short-lived but very sexy series, Skin, and guest starring as bad girl Alex Kelly on The O.C., Wilde’s motel room romp with Emile Hirsch in Alpha Dog should not have been as jarring. Maybe it was the the fact that we could finally put an actual image to the fantasy created by restrictive TV-14 ratings that took us aback.

Anne Hathaway

4. ANNE HATHAWAY

Movie: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Given the frequency in which Disney stars’ naked photos leak, we’ve got to give Anne Hathaway props for getting naked the socially acceptable way: in an Oscar-worthy film. As Jake Gyllehaal’s wife Lureen Newsome, Hathaway gave audiences an eyeful when she bore her breasts in a truck-sex scene that we can still recall six years later.

Helen Mirren

3. HELEN MIRREN

Movie: Love Ranch (2010)
When Mirren was dubbed “Stratford’s very own sex queen” as a rising star at the Royal Shakespeare Company, we should have taken the hint. That's not the only queen we've seen her as, she's also taken on the roles Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. After those royal roles, seeing Mirren's whorehouse madame go nude at 65 with a co-star 30 years younger was downright shocking.

Carey Mulligan

2. CAREY MULLIGAN

Movie: Shame (2011)
Carey Mulligan’s image pretty much embodies the word “demure.” She’s the cute, pixie-haired girl who stars in BBC movies and Jane Austen movie adaptations. It just feels like she’s naturally predisposed to wearing layers and layers of 18th century attire. Carey literally sheds that image in her own instantly revealing shower scene in Shame, a film starring Michael Fassbender as a yuppie turned uncontrollable sexaholic.

Elizabeth Olsen

1. ELIZABETH OLSEN

Movie: Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
After watching Mary Kate and Ashley grow up on television, a nude scene from either of them would destroy the sanctity of our childhood. Suffice it to say, we expected the same modesty from their younger sister Elizabeth Olsen, but in a movie about an incestuous cult practicing free love, Elizabeth’s quick departure from the shadows of her sisters’ reputation is inevitable, where she becomes the first Olsen to go nude on-screen.