'I was more comfortable naked!' Westworld and Line Of Duty star Thandie Newton admits she prefers acting totally nude than in 'inviting and provocative' costumes

She's currently starring in two major series: Westworld and Line Of Duty.

And while Thandie Newton finds herself having to wear formal, uncomfortable police clothing for the latter, she's appeared in Westworld totally naked.

But the actress has insisted that she doesn't mind it; and that she in fact feels more liberated by those scenes.

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'I was more comfortable naked!' Westworld and Line Of Duty star Thandie Newton admits she prefers acting totally nude than in 'inviting and provocative' costumes

'I was more comfortable naked!' Westworld and Line Of Duty star Thandie Newton admits she prefers acting totally nude than in 'inviting and provocative' costumes

'I found myself more empowered naked than I did with the saloon outfit on,' she said, comparing her nude scenes to the ones in which she wears frilly, figure-clinging, busty costumes for her sex worker robot character, Maeve Millay.

'I was more comfortable naked because the costume was the most potent objectification of a woman, with the boobs pushed right up, the tiny waist. It’s an invitation for sex,' the 44-year-old elaborated whilst in conversation with Line Of Duty exec Jed Mercurio.

'The fishnet tights, the little heels with the laces... It’s all about sensuality. It’s about eroticism. It’s about "Look, but don’t touch".

'It’s all there to make the invitation for sex as provocative as possible and then the promise of satisfaction is practically just there.'

Empowering: A staunch mouthpiece for gender and racial equality, the British star explained that acting in the busty costume garnered a kind of unwanted, lude attention on set, while her nude scenes saw her treated much more respectfully

Empowering: A staunch mouthpiece for gender and racial equality, the British star explained that acting in the busty costume garnered a kind of unwanted, lude attention on set, while her nude scenes saw her treated much more respectfully

A staunch mouthpiece for gender and racial equality, the British star explained that acting in the busty costume garnered a kind of unwanted, lude attention on set, while her nude scenes saw her treated much more respectfully.

Her Line Of Duty role, DCI Roz Huntley, sees her tackle an empowering female character in a different way.

'I realised we were going to do something horribly, diabolically real. I found the most horrible shoes and pop socks that I would insist on pulling up so you could see them,' she said of the part, which sees her play a law-enforcing professional mother, whose costumes were far from revealing/  

'Every woman will recognise the frustrations,' Thandie said of Roz, who is a mum of two being investigated for possible corruption by AC-12.

Strong woman: Thandie is currently starring in two major series - Westworld and Line Of Duty

Strong woman: Thandie is currently starring in two major series - Westworld and Line Of Duty

'In every role, in every job, every line of work, as a mother you just have to be twice as good and if you’re black you have to be twice as good on top of that,' she went on, addressing race.

'She’s a Senior Investigating Officer and she’s taken five years off, to raise her family and has to claw her way back to where she was. It’s a very real problem, what is most degrading is the sexual abuse that goes on whether it’s verbal or whether it’s physical it’s very tough on women.

'Roz is under a hell of a lot of pressure and the audience sees that pressure and that allows the audience to be judge and jury, which I think is fantastic.'

On top of feminism and racial issues, Thandie has had her own experiences with body image - suffering from bulimia whilst at Cambridge University, where she studied anthropology.

Sex-bot: 'The fishnet tights, the little heels with the laces... It’s all about sensuality. It’s about eroticism. It’s about "Look, but don’t touch",' she explained

Sex-bot: 'The fishnet tights, the little heels with the laces... It’s all about sensuality. It’s about eroticism. It’s about "Look, but don’t touch",' she explained

Stunning: Her Line Of Duty role, DCI Roz Huntley, sees her tackle an empowering female character in a different way

Stunning: Her Line Of Duty role, DCI Roz Huntley, sees her tackle an empowering female character in a different way

Drawing on experience: On top of feminism and racial issues, Thandie has had her own experiences with body image - suffering from bulimia whilst at Cambridge University, where she studied anthropology

Drawing on experience: On top of feminism and racial issues, Thandie has had her own experiences with body image - suffering from bulimia whilst at Cambridge University, where she studied anthropology

'I was not perceived as the person that boys wanted to go out with. And that has a very strong effect on a young girl,' she said. 'I was lying in bed and I remember feeling my heart against my ribcage. Because my ribs were so close to my skin it was like my heart was coming out. I thought: "F***, I’m going to die".'

Since dabbling with acting, which she first did when she was 16 years old, she was lured into touching herself on camera for an audition, which the director is said to have used privately at sex parties. 

Any experience that she has since chanelled into her work as an actress will have no doubt helped her performances - and in 2004's Crash, the role of an abused woman she played earned her a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.

The star admits she joined the cast of Line Of Duty without having seen all of the previous three seasons, or even reading the script for season four.

Award-winning: Since dabbling with acting, which she first did when she was 16 years old, she was lured into touching herself on camera for an audition, which the director is said to have used privately at sex parties

Award-winning: Since dabbling with acting, which she first did when she was 16 years old, she was lured into touching herself on camera for an audition, which the director is said to have used privately at sex parties

She said: 'I hadn’t seen any of it before but I had a call from my agent and she said, "If you ever want to work on British television this is the best thing you could ever do."

'I watched it with my husband and I could not stop from episode to episode. I didn’t know what was going to happen in the episodes but I just signed on.'

Filming took place in Northern Ireland and Thandie recalled how she enlisted her childrens' nanny to help her learn the lengthy mass of lines in the scripts. 

'She would dread it every night. I’d ply her with wine, really expensive wine, to sweeten her up, then I’d be going through lines, psyched because of the day of filming. Poor woman, I should have paid her a bit more,' she revealed.   

 

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