Julia Roberts Had Her Nude Scene in ‘Duplicity’ Significantly Toned Down for the Film

Actor Julia Roberts is no stranger to intimate love scenes in movies. But in her 2009 project Duplicity, she didn’t expect the nude sequence she read in the film’s script. And Roberts reminded the movie’s director that she wasn’t exactly known for disrobing in front of the camera.

Julia Roberts told her ‘Duplicity’ director she was too G-Rated for nude scenes

Roberts has been very adamant about keeping her clothes on in movies. Even earlier in her career, she found a way to work around projects like Pretty Woman, where showing skin might’ve made sense. According to Daily Mail, Roberts once shared that if she disrobed in a movie, it wouldn’t feel like she was acting anymore.

“I wouldn’t do nudity in films. To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary,” she said.

Being a parent only further discouraged Roberts from exposing herself in front of audiences.

“You know it’s not really what I do, so if you are going ask me to do it, you have to expect it to be toned down. You know, as a mum of three, I feel like that,” she said.

But her Duplicity director Tony Gilroy seemed to try to bypass Roberts’ restrictions in their 2009 feature. Duplicity was a romantic crime film that she co-starred with Clive Owen in. Initially, there was a scene that required Roberts to be nude. But Roberts changed the scene so it was more accommodating to her standards.

“I thought, y’know, just remember you’ve hired me…I’m, like, the G-rated actress,” she once said according to Contact Music.

Why Julia Roberts’ ‘Pretty Woman’ body double felt her physique was better for the film

Keeping true to her word, Roberts also didn’t undress for Pretty Woman. In the movie’s original script, it’s hinted that Roberts’ character might’ve shown far more skin than she did in Disney’s version. Speaking on Variety’s Actors on Actors, the Oscar-winner confided that she somewhat dreaded the role because of that.

“Even in Pretty Woman, if I had to be in a slip, I’d be covered in hives. I was breaking out in a cold sweat watching Escape at Dannemora.… Oh, my Christ. I just don’t even know,” Roberts said.

But seeing as Roberts was playing a sex worker, it might’ve felt a bit unrealistic for her character to remain completely clothed for the film. So a body double was used for the scenes that Roberts was unwilling to do. Shelley Michelle was Roberts’ stand-in for the character’s more revealing scenes. At the time, Michelle felt her body matched the movie more than Roberts’.

“My legs were a little curvier. I was a little more busty,” Michelle once told the Sun Sentinel. “It made her look a little more curvaceous, just gave her that body she needed.”

Michelle also touched on the backlash being a body double on films like Pretty Woman caused. Although she understood where skeptics came from, she didn’t agree with their views.

“Really, I don’t understand it because there have been stunt people in Hollywood forever,” Michelle said. “But I suppose when this Cinderella movie came out and everybody loved it so much, when they found out it wasn’t really her body, they felt cheated by not really seeing the girl. But my feeling is that movies are a fantasy, and just an illusion anyway.”

Julia Roberts felt weird having to kiss Clive Owen in front of her husband on the set of ‘Duplicity’

Although Roberts wasn’t used to doing nude scenes, she was accustomed to making out with her contemporaries on-screen. However, these types of scenes might’ve been more challenging in Duplicity, as she had to kiss her co-star right in front of her partner. Her husband, Danny Moder, was a cameraman who worked on the film.

“It’s awkward… When you’re not kissing your true love, it’s awkward,” she said.