Jack O'Connell Talks About His On-Stage Shower Scene

Jack O’Connell is baring it all on stage nightly in the new West End production of the classic play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and he’s opening up about his shower scene.

The 26-year-old actor, best known for his work in Unbroken and Money Monster, stars alongside Sienna Miller in the play.

“In the writing, the shower is offstage. Brick’s first few lines of dialogue would traditionally be offstage. Look, it was a bit of a curve ball,” Jack told Variety about showering on stage. “You have to try to get your head around it. I just went with it. I was given the option to wear swimwear, to keep my modesty intact. That’s the easy way out. You think, ‘When does anyone really shower with underwear on?’ I find that more distracting.”

“Not really,” Jack said when asked if he was nervous. “I guess I was nervous when I started going nude in rehearsals. I thought: we’re getting close to previews, I might as well start realizing what this is, or how this feels, while I was naked. So yeah, the clothes came off in the rehearsal room. I was grateful for that. By the time the previews were happening, a lot of people in the production had seen what it is like to start the play naked.”

“[The water is cold] to begin with, actually,” he added. “They don’t have the opportunity to heat it when it first runs. Eventually, it warms up. But that doesn’t really help me. Obviously, scientifically, any male will know that you tend to shrivel in cold water. That was a concern.”

The London production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is running through October 7.