Lucy Lawless Finally Reveals How Rough Filming Her First Nude Scenes On ‘Spartacus; Actually Was

Lucy Lawless built a career on playing women who could survive almost anything, from a warrior princess swinging a sword through ancient Greece to a scheming Roman noblewoman fighting for status in the arena. Her turn as Lucretia in Starz’s ‘Spartacus’ franchise remains one of the more talked about performances of her career, largely because the show never shied away from bold, unflinching content. Before ‘Game of Thrones’ became known for its own use of nudity, Starz’s various seasons of ‘Spartacus’ had already claimed that reputation for itself.

That history came right along with Lawless herself, whose husband Rob Tapert produced the series while she played one of its most exposed characters across multiple seasons. Lawless portrayed Lucretia, the not entirely loyal wife of John Hannah’s Batiatus, across ‘Spartacus: Blood and Sand,’ the prequel season ‘Gods of the Arena,’ and the arc known as ‘Spartacus: Vengeance.’ It made her one of the faces most associated with the franchise’s most daring material.

Now, more than a decade later, Lawless is opening up about just how difficult that experience actually was. Speaking on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside of You, she confirmed that ‘Spartacus’ marked her first time filming nude scenes, and that the memory of shooting them was so unpleasant that she has “blanked it all out.” When Rosenbaum asked directly whether the series was her first experience with on screen nudity, she simply answered yes, admitting she had tried to forget most of it.

The actress has hinted at that discomfort for years, even while the show was still airing. In an earlier interview with Collider, she made clear that nudity and sex scenes are not the same experience for an actor, explaining that simple nudity can become routine while scenes involving physical intimacy trigger a much stronger instinct for self protection. She noted that people naturally have a visceral reaction against exploiting something normally kept private, since most people in everyday life do not put themselves out in that way.

That same Inside of You conversation with Rosenbaum also produced one of the wilder behind the scenes stories from the ‘Spartacus’ set. Lawless recalled an orgy scene extra who nearly attacked a crew member after someone accidentally stepped on the tail of her costume, reacting so fiercely that the cast and crew had to calm her down on the spot. Lawless later reasoned that the outburst made sense once she considered how much that kind of wardrobe damage could cost a performer working in that line of the industry.

Beyond ‘Spartacus,’ Lawless has built one of the more eclectic resumes in genre television, with credits including ‘Xena: Warrior Princess,’ ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ‘Parks and Recreation,’ ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead.’ She is also set to appear in the upcoming New Zealand drama ‘Pike River,’ alongside Robyn Malcolm and Melanie Lynskey.

The ‘Spartacus’ universe itself is not done expanding either. A new prequel series titled ‘Spartacus: House of Ashur’ is in the works at Starz, with original showrunner Steven S. DeKnight returning and a cast that includes Graham McTavish and returning franchise star Nick Tarabay, though Lawless is not expected to be part of it.

Given how candid she has now been about what really went on behind those scenes, it is hard not to wonder how fans will look back at Lucretia’s most talked about moments knowing the toll they took, so what is your own strongest memory of Lucy Lawless in ‘Spartacus’?