Anyone But You: Glen Powell Thought His Nude Scene Would End His Hollywood Career
The upcoming romantic comedy "Anyone But You" is rated R for sexual content, language, and nudity. That should entice fans who prefer adult-friendly entries in the genre, but the nude scenes in "Anyone But You" aren't exactly scintillating. When Glen Powell's character, Ben, bares all, it has less to do with romance and more to do with the giant spider in his drawers.
In the film, Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and her one-time flame Ben find themselves at the same wedding in Australia. Despite their hatred of one another, the pair pretend to be a couple to serve their respective needs — Ben to make his ex jealous, and Bea to discourage her parents from meddling in her love life. Ben and Bea show off their fake relationship on a group hike one day, where, upon finding a spider in his shorts, Ben frantically sheds the rest of his clothing. Bea then inspects his body for more sneaky arachnids.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Powell and Sweeney sat down to discuss the funny cliffside scene. "I think I've seen..." Sweeney began, before Powell interrupted her. "You're the only person who's seen!" The sequence understandably had Powell feeling pretty exposed, to the point where he feared for his future as an actor. "That was the moment where I thought this could be the end of my career, right here, right now on this cliff side," Powell joked. Shooting the scene did, in fact, threaten Powell's future, but nudity had nothing to do with it.
Powell almost tumbled off the cliff
Filming nude scenes can be awkward and embarrassing. For Glen Powell, it was almost deadly. When the actor stripped down to his birthday suit in "Anyone But You," the actor was a little overzealous — so much so that he almost fell off the cliff. "Taking your clothes off on the side of a cliff in a hurry is not safe either," Powell told Variety. "Nobody talks about that safety issue on set, where I almost died falling off a cliff taking my pants off too fast. But it's a really fun scene, so it was all worth it."
The scene was just as harrowing for Sydney Sweeney, who endured a nasty bite from the huntsman spider while filming. Thanks to her costar, she received proper medical attention. "Well, the spider actually bit me in the middle of this scene but nobody called cut because they thought I was just making a very dramatic, interesting choice in this scene, and Glen was the only one who finally caught on," the actress told Hoda Kotb in an appearance on TODAY.
Rest assured, Powell and Sweeney's death-defying rom-com antics proved their mettle as actors. Powell will be seen next in "Twisters," and Sweeney is making her Marvel debut in the upcoming "Madame Web."