Helen Mirren considered breaking her own leg in a desperate effort to get out of her first fully frontal nude film scene.
The Oscar winner admits she was a mess the morning of her big reveal in Ken Russell's 1972 film The Savage Messiah and thought about harming herself to force the director to rethink the scene.
She tells WENN, "I played a bra-burning suffragette in the turn of the century. It's Ken Russell so it was pretty well out there.
"The day I had to do that nude scene, where I had to walk completely b**lock naked down a flight of stairs, was awful. It was early days and I was so mortified, embarrassed and unhappy about it.
"I remember that morning looking out of my trailer, this funky little caravan thing and wondered if I threw myself off the top step of the trailer I could manage to break my leg and not have to do the scene! I wouldn't like to do that today."
Mirren fast became known for stripping off onscreen - but she insists it isn't as easy as it looks: "It's never comfortable. The best thing would be if all the crew took their clothes off too and then you'd feel fine but it's never comfortable to be the only one without clothes on."