Actress Shocked -- Shocked! -- To Learn Skinemax Wanted Her To Do Softcore Porn

An actress and TV suits try to screw each other in court over just how naked she had to get in a soft-core series.

Cinemax is a premium cable network with only two missions: to show all the third-rate movies in HBO’s catalog that HBO would never want associated with the flagship network[1] and to show softcore porn. That’s it. It has no other role.

Which is why it’s curious that an actress who signed on to play a part in a Cinemax TV series was so shocked to learn that they actually wanted her to take her clothes off and simulate sex acts while embroiled in what — I’m guessing — is some plothole-ridden murder mystery.

Anyway, she was shocked, and since this is ‘Murica, she sued and then Cinemax and its parent entities sued back with the help of a certain Biglaw firm…

The actress in question is Anne Greene. She was in one of the Saw movies, which I never watched, but I assume it’s one of those arthouse films that does well at Cannes. Anyway, Anne Greene moved on from her turn in Saw and eventually scored a role in Femme Fatales, a Cinemax program. Per Hollywood Reporter, the makers of Femme Fatales allege that Greene auditioned for roles in prior Femme Fatales episodes whose casting breakdowns indicated that the roles would “require partial nudity,” defined as “chest” and “behind.” She missed out on these roles. As for starring in the show, she probably never thought it would happen to her, but then one day…

The actress didn’t get those initial roles, but in November 2011, she auditioned for the lead role in an episode entitled “Jailbreak.” The cross-complaint says that by this time, 13 episodes of the show had already aired. Greene accepted an offer to play the part of Kendra. She signed an employment agreement along with a personal release and nudity rider. True Crime says that to prepare Greene for her role, it sent her a DVD copy of a prequel episode to “Jailbreak” that had aired early in the first season.

So this show is in its second season, she’s got a DVD copy of an episode, and I still can’t help but think her biggest tip off should have been when she found out her character was named “Kendra.”

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The stories, predictably, diverge. Anne Greene filed a suit two years ago alleging that she was bullied into performing nude scenes, sexually harassed, and placed in a dangerous work environment:

In the suit, she names Steve Kriozere as “executive director” of the production and Joe Schwartz as assistant director. She charges they made “inappropriate sexual comments to her,” including telling her that showing her “tits” was a “prerequisite to even be on this show.”

The suit says Anne G was “required to rehearse practically nude due to the malfunctioning pasties on a nonclosed set devoid of nonessential production crew. The on-set rewrites while the camera was rolling, sexual comments, threats of financial retribution, among other things, created an intimidating, sexually hostile and offensive work environment.”

Here’s that complaint.

Now comes Harrison Dossick, a Reed Smith partner in the Century City office, to file a counter alleging that Greene breached the “Nudity Rider” in her contract for Femme Fatales. According to the producers, Anne Greene signed all the appropriate contracts and the crew accommodated her apprehensions over some of the more explicit scenes. But the most intriguing turn came when Greene allegedly tried to resolve her problem showing her “tits” as it were:

Greene allegedly explained that she would have no problem with the scene if she didn’t have to expose her nipples. And so they spoke to wardrobe to see if the actress could be fitted with coverings known as “pasties” to obscure her nipples.

“The True Crime representative knew the ‘Pasties’ would show on film and therefore require True Crime to hire a body double and spend substantial time editing (both at significant unbudgeted expense) just to get the frontal partially nude shots called for in the scene, and would not be compliant with HBO’s policy prohibiting the use of ‘Pasties’ in sex scenes,” say the legal papers. “Nevertheless, the True Crime representative agreed to accommodate Greene’s wishes in order to mitigate and minimize True Crime’s losses.”

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HBO has a policy on pasties? Really? I want to see that employee handbook. It’s not like they said, “We don’t want this show to use pasties” — they claim they have a “policy.”

This sets up a courtroom showdown where nothing makes sense and it’s unclear whose story to trust.

Probably would make for a good Cinemax series.

Producers Sue Actress for Refusing to Film Nude Sex Scene (Exclusive)



[1] Remember The Purge? Neither does anyone else.