Former Grey’s Anatomy star Eric Dane has spoken out about that shocking full frontal nude scene in the debut episode of HBO’s new series, Euphoria.
The show revolves around the lives of a group of high school friends, and Dane plays a married middle-aged man who is having an affair with a 17-year-old trans girl.
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While speaking to EW, Dane opened up about the graphic scene that has had viewers talking, revealing that scenes such as that one “are very difficult to shoot”
“It helps to have one voice in your ear. One voice that you can express your feelings to, and somebody that is an advocate for the actors,” he added. “It just simplifies a lot of things and makes for a safe and comfortable environment while shooting something that is fairly uncomfortable to shoot. And certainly, the stuff that we did in the pilot is no exception. It’s a pretty intense scene.”
The sequence features a shot of male genitalia, but the member itself is actually a prosthetic. Nevertheless, Dane says that he is “willing to do anything that’s critical to the story and crucial to creating a very real and truthful feel to how the story is gonna go down.”
“I just don’t see how you shoot a scene like that without showing nudity,” he continued, “And, you know, it kind of matches the stakes. The stakes are so high, you can’t hold anything back, really.”
“Using a prosthetic is sort of protocol. It’s protocol and it’s also very considerate to your scene partner,” Dane went on to share. “There was one isolated shot that I suggested, ‘Look if it makes more sense to not use a prosthetic, I’m willing to go there.’ At the end of the day, because of the context, we decided that the prosthetic was the way to go, and we came to that decision as a group.”
Regarding the deeply candid nature of the show, Dane said, “To a degree, this is a cautionary tale. It’s certainly not a love letter to drugs or drug addiction, but as a cautionary tale, these are some pretty realistic circumstances and how these kids are navigating them is probably how a lot of kids today are going to navigate them.”
“The show provides no-nonsense optics on what it means to be a teenager today – drug addiction, personal conflict. When you’re tackling issues like that you do it a disservice to not be truthful about it,” he also offered. “You can’t sugarcoat stuff like this. I believe that people now are more open to things like drug addiction and sexuality and mental health issues. Thank God there’s been sort of an open dialogue about it for the last few years.”
The series premiere of Euphoria is currently available to stream on the HBO Now and HBO Go apps for subscribers of the premium cable network.
