Brooke Shields has opened up about some of the uncomfortable things she says she was asked to do for The Blue Lagoon.
Directed by Randal Kleiser and written by Douglas Day Stewart, The Blue Lagoon tells the story of a girl and a boy who are marooned on a tropical island paradise in the South Pacific.
They attempt to survive without adult supervision, but when they hit puberty they start to fall for each other.
Shields was just 14 years old when she appeared in the film, while her co-star Christopher Atkins was 18, which is shocking when you consider how much nudity there is.
Since Atkins was technically an adult, he performed his own nude scenes while Shields had a body double or she had hair glued to her chest.
The film industry is a very different place now, and Shields alongside many others are well aware that a movie featuring underage nudity would not fly today.
The now 57-year-old opened up about the various issues surrounding The Blue Lagoon alongside Atkins in a recent episode of her Now What? podcast.
“Never again will a movie be made like that,” she said. “It wouldn’t be allowed.”
In agreement, Atkins responded: “Oh gosh no. Animals were hurt in the movie. We were spearing fish and all kinds of crazy things. Children are naked running down a beach, couldn’t do that now.”
Shields then went into detail about some of the uncomfortable things the pair were asked to do to prepare for the role.
She explained: “We were never eased into it. We got there and they instantly wanted us to be tanned.
“Remember, they set up those little thatched areas so that we could get tanned without tan lines.”
Atkins added: “There were scenes where I was butt naked with you, if you remember, sliding down that slide and things like that.
“And that was a little awkward, but it was kind of funny for me because at this point in time I would just do it. But your reaction was: ‘Ugh, oh god.'”
And it wasn’t just the nudity that was problematic, with Atkins adding: “There were long hours and there was a lot of physical stuff in that movie.
Shields agreed with the physical strain that came with creating The Blue Lagoon, stating: “Any kind of cut you had and you went in the water, bits of the coral would get into the cut and it’d become completely infected and ulcerated.
“We were like the Wild West but it just happened to be on the water.
“And I remember I got pneumonia… In the birthing scene, when I’m supposed to be having the baby, I uncontrollably can’t breathe and have a coughing fit and everyone’s like what a great acting choice, I’m like, ‘I can’t breathe!'”
Considering the film only has a measly eight percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems the decision to depict underage nudity unsurprisingly didn’t go down too well with audiences.
Brooke Shields opens up about having to kiss grown men on set when she was just 11
Brooke Shields has opened up about having to kiss grown men on set when she was 11 years old.
Now 57, the Hollywood star had to kiss Keith Carradine, who was 27 at the time, in the 1978 film Pretty Baby in which she played a prostitute in New Orleans in 1917.
The actor has now said that her own daughters; Rowan, 19 and Grier, 16, refuse to watch the film and she struggles to understand why her own mum let her kiss a grown man.
The Endless Love star went as far as calling the film ‘child pornography’.
In a clip from the upcoming two-part documentary which is also named Pretty Baby, Rowan said: “It’s child pornography! Would you have let us [do that] at the age of 11?”
The Hollywood icon emotionally replies, ‘No’.
Speaking with The Sunday Times Magazine, Brooke said the conversation with her daughters was difficult, as she struggled to come to terms with her mum’s decision.
“That was hard for me, to not justify mum to them. But when they asked, I thought ‘Oh God, I have to admit this’. But I don’t know why she thought it was all right.
“’I mean, I could say, ‘Oh, it was the time back then,’ or ‘Oh, it was art.’ But I don’t know why she thought it was all right. I don’t know.’”
Brooke’s mother was Theresia ‘Teri’ Shields, an American actress, socialite and model who died in 2012, three years after she was diagnosed with dementia aged 79.
The Blue Lagoon star’s mum struggled with alcoholism and in her book, There Was a Little Girl, Brooke shared that her mum would often leave her at a neighbour’s house to go out partying and would organize dates for a young Brooke with famous men.
“Even though I understood her better than anybody else, I’m not sure I ever understood her fully,” she wrote.
Brooke also questions why her mother allowed her to pose naked for Playboy when she was just 10 years old in the upcoming doc.
When she was 14, she appeared in The Blue Lagoon, a film that also included a lot of nude scenes. While all of her nude scenes were performed by the film’s 32-year-old stunt coordinator, Brooke did many of her topless scenes with her hair glued to her chest.
