Denzel Washington’s Co-Star Insisted That She Went Topless for Their Love Scene in This Film
Actor Denzel Washington has had his fair share of love scenes in his long career. For many female actors, shooting love scenes can be uncomfortable when they have to remove clothing. But one actor insisted to undress for Washington in this action thriller.
Denzel Washington’s co-star felt she needed to be topless for their love scene
Washington collaborated with Mark Wahlberg first time in his 2013 feature 2 Guns. He signed on for the project because he needed to star in something light after doing the heavy drama Flight. A lighthearted romp with Wahlberg was exactly what he needed. But the actor also found himself teaming up with a familiar face in actor Paula Patton.
Patton originally collaborated with Washington several years ago in Deja Vu. 2 Guns would see the two reunite as love interests, and required them to engage in a love scene. Nudity wasn’t required for the sequence at first. But Patton felt confident removing her shirt for the film and Washington helped serve the film’s story more.
“The day before we were going to shoot the scene, I was thinking about it,” Washington once told Blavity. “These are people that have been together before, and they’re having a conversation and had just made love, and it just seemed really phony to me to have a shirt on. And so I just kind of sprung it on [director Baltasar Kormakur]. I came to set and I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to be wearing a top.’”
Patton asked her husband at the time, Robin Thicke, if she should do the scene topless.
“And he goes, ‘Go for it, babe.’ We don’t really get hung up about those kinds of things,” she said.
How a Denzel Washington love scene once led to rumors of an affair
As is occasionally the case with certain celebrity love scenes, one of Washington’s steamier onscreen moments might’ve been too convincing. The actor once starred in the cop thriller Out of Time alongside Eva Mendes and Sanaa Latham. Washington and Latham acted out an intense love scene, which Latham believed generated rumors of an affair between them.
“[The rumor] got started because the movie had a love scene with Denzel, and people took that and translated it to real life,” Latham once told Vibe (via Huffpost). “They said I was pregnant with Denzel’s child, and people were calling my mother, saying I’m having his baby. It’s frustrating. People are going to talk no matter what.”
The rumors had no effect on Washington’s marriage to his wife Pauletta, however. As of 2024, the married couple is still going strong, and Washington’s brief scandal seems to have died out.
Denzel Washington has an alleged history of cutting out love scenes
As many love scenes as Washington’s done, he’s also been reportedly known to cut out a few love scenes as well. Perhaps one of his most well known omissions is a sequence where Washington was supposed to kiss Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief. Washington’s representative once denied the scenes were cut, but Roberts would share years later that there was some truth to the reports.
“Don’t I have a pulse? Of course I wanted to kiss Denzel. It was his idea to take the damn scenes out,” Roberts once said according to Today.
Washington’s kissing scenes with Mimi Rogers in The Mighty Quinn were also allegedly cut after a strong negative response from African American women. A similar situation happened in Man on Fire, where his love scene with actor Radha Mitchell were also discarded. A representative from the film’s studio didn’t disclose exactly why the scenes were excluded from the film. But they did confirm it was cut.
“I don’t think there was any agenda. And if there was, I probably wouldn’t tell you,” she said.
