Bradley Cooper had to be N- for six hours on the set of Nightmare Alley

The actor and director acknowledged that his first frontal N- on film was not easy for him

Bradley Cooper has opened up about how he navigated his first time doing frontal N- on film. The American actor and director had to take off all his clothes on the set of "Nightmare Alley" ("The Alley of Lost Souls"), the new film by Mexican Guillermo del Toro, and it was not easy for him despite his years of career in Hollywood.

In a recent interview, Cooper told about the sequence that was very difficult for him to address in the psychological thriller, which is based on the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, published in 1946.

In the film, Cooper plays Stanton Carlisle, a charismatic manipulator who scams millionaires with the help of psychologist Lilith Ritter, played by Cate Blanchett, who just received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for her performance.

Deciding to strip completely N- in front of the camera was a decision the actor did not take lightly, calling the whole thing "a big deal" mainly because he had never done it before. The complicated scene took place during Toni Collette's "first day" of filming, and Cooper had to be N- "in front of the crew for six hours."

The 47-year-old actor recalled his uncomfortable experience in conversation with the aforementioned medium. “I can still remember that day N- in front of the team for six hours, and it was Toni Collette's first day. It was pretty strong,” he said.

While he admitted that his first N- scene was "a big deal," Cooper said the decision to appear N- was made for purely artistic reasons. "Because the content of the film, what we were exploring, to do it in a real way, required that we strip ourselves emotionally," explained the artist.

The actor, who has been nominated for an Oscar eight times, is up for a new nomination on February 8 for his supporting role in Paul Thomas Anderson's “Licorice Pizza,” which has already earned him several critical awards and a SAG nomination.

The cast of "Nightmare Alley" is completed with Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Jim Beaver, and Mark Povinelli. The film's script was written by del Toro in collaboration with his wife Kim Morgan.

The last film that del Toro directed was "The Shape of Water" (2017), which won several victories in the categories of best film, best direction, best production design, and best soundtrack at the Hollywood Academy Awards.