Claes Bang thought he was finished being "entirely naked" on stage until his new role.
The 55-year-old actor recently starred as an ageing billionaire art collector who strikes up a relationship with a younger man in raunchy new play 'Daddy' and was asked to appear nude, despite initially thinking his full frontal time was up.
He said: "I’ve done two plays where I was naked for the entirety. I thought, ‘That’s it. I’ve done my naked duty. No more.’
"But then I was approached for ‘Daddy’, loved everything about it, and it makes total sense that we are naked for that stretch of time."
The 'Dracula' star - who also starred in 'The Northman', which was shot mid-lockdown - explained that he was "super happy" to do in the play at London's Almeida Theatre providing no COVID-19 measures were in place for rehearsals.
He told The Guardian newspaper: "Filming during COVID has been a very alienating process. For one thing, I have not been able to really see the director because everyone’s in masks and visors.
"So I said, ‘I’m super happy to do your play, but if we’re not allowed to work without masks in the rehearsal room, I will have to ask you to find someone else because that is exactly what I need.’
"It’s become very clear to me during COVID that the contact thing is why I’m here."
Claes was joined by Terique Jarrett in the cast of 'Daddy', and he explained it was "important" to tackle the racy scenes properly and praised intimacy coordinators their role in helping create emotional sex scenes.
He said: "I thought it was important that we really got in there. And I have to say, the director and the intimacy coordinator and Terique and I, we did a really good, very respectful job of getting that relationship to be as alive as I thought it was.
"I’ve had directors back in the day who would say, ‘OK, it’s a sex scene. There’s the bed, get undressed, do your thing and I’ll be filming it.’
"But I’ll say, ‘Um, but hey, excuse me, this will be far too private if you don’t say what you want it to be. Should it be a tender or a rough thing? Dominant or messy?’
"If you’ve put the scene in the movie, you want to say something. It can’t be just about seeing two people s*******!'"
