Understand and Identify Your Personal and Professional Boundaries While Auditioning

There is no right or wrong answer to the question of whether you should appear nude on camera. Actors all have different professional boundaries, personal comfort levels and requirements. Actors who don’t want to get nude for a part are not less dedicated to their craft, and actors who are comfortable with it are not selling out.
The important thing is to know your personal and professional boundaries, and to be educated regarding industry standards in order to keep yourself safe. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between legitimate projects and predatory exploitation.
Recently, the International Casting Directors Network (ICDN) flagged a scammer who was using established major casting platforms to solicit nude and sexually explicit self-tapes from actors. While many of these sites have diligent customer support teams working to identify and eliminate such scammers from their platforms, every now and then they slip through the cracks. Knowing certain red flags can help actors identify dangerous situations. 
To be perfectly clear, if you’ve found yourself in a situation that felt exploitative or unprofessional, it’s not your fault, and it doesn’t mean you were naive or negligent. Hopefully spreading awareness of scammers and predatory behavior amongst industry “professionals” can not only help actors avoid them, but also help producers, directors and casting professionals continue to work to make our industry safer and more regulated.
Be especially aware in the early stages of the casting process. ICDN urges actors to remember that nudity clauses are negotiated during the contracting phase. You should absolutely never be asked to “prove” your willingness to simulate sexual acts on-screen, or to appear nude, either in a self tape or in-person audition. If you are being asked to do something that doesn’t feel right, and don’t have an agent to back you up, please email the ICDN hotline at reportcastingabuse@theicdn.com.
Additionally, the new SAG collective bargaining agreement terms prohibit nudity at any audition except for a single, final callback audition. As a reminder, they do not permit and have never permitted a producer to request that performers engage in real sex acts. Further resources and information regarding nude scenes can be found in The TIME’S UP Guide to Working in Entertainment.
Remember to trust your gut. If something feels off, and you don’t feel able or comfortable speaking up in the moment, buy yourself time to research, reevaluate, and check in with your agent or trusted industry professionals. No legitimate professional is going to object to you making sure an audition or project is on the up and up. If you get too much pushback, it’s probably not a good sign. On-camera nudity and sex scenes should be highly regulated and contractually detailed. If someone is pressuring you to do something that has not been thoroughly discussed and documented in writing beforehand, chances are they don’t have your best interests at heart. Arm yourself with education, and stay safe out there.
 
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