Gawker is reporting that Shia LaBeouf, who recently joined Lars von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac, may be having real sex in the film. The young actor’s involvement in the project may be surprising to some, but considering he appeared completely nude in a recent music video not too long ago, this career choice doesn’t shock me.
Furthermore, von Trier is no stranger to extremes. He’s known for some very shocking films and somehow manages to get most of his actors to partake in some very “uncomfortable” scenes. After all, Kirsten Dunst did her first nude scene for the director in Melancholia and both Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg went to some dark places in Antichrist.
As for Nymphomaniac, no word yet on what the scenes will depict and in fact, it’s not even certain that LaBeouf will be featured in the more explicit scenes. All we do know for sure is that some of the actors involved (which include Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nicole Kidman and Stellan Skarsgård) will be participating in unsimulated sex.
“It is what you think it is,” LaBeouf told MTV. “There’s a disclaimer at the top of the script that basically says, we’re doing it for real. And anything that is ‘illegal’ will be shot in blurred images. But other than that, everything is happening.”
This isn’t the first time that unsimulated sex has appeared on the big screen though. Lars von Trier did it with his 2009 film Antichrist and both 2006’s Shortbus and 2003’s The Brown Bunny featured real sex as well, though it the latter’s case it was an unsimulated fellatio scene.
LaBeouf is turning into quite the edgy actor and now that he’s sworn off franchise films, I’m interested to see how his career unfolds. I still remember him from his days on Even Stevens, did you ever think that little Louis Stevens would be having unsimulated sex on film? Oh how far he’s come.
Nymphomaniac will “chronicle the sexual adventures of a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) from her youth through age 50. Production is expected to get underway this September and we’ll keep you posted when we hear more news on the film.
