Eva Mendes tried to talk her way out of a masturbation scene that opens her new film, We Own The Night - because the idea of watching herself moan and groan on a big screen terrified her.
Mendes did everything she could to change director James Gray's mind about the "uncomfortable scene", which she actually shot at the end of filming - but he insisted that's how his movie should start.
She says, "I remember being so scared that morning and really trying to stall, but I just had to do it. Usually you feel that ticking time bomb but that morning it was a couple of hours of me and Joaquin and James just talking.
"I was talking in circles and trying to get out of it. I just talked myself into an oblivion and did it.
"That was the last scene we shot and we had three months of history together, which really helped. The scene is erotic but it comes from a place of love". ( FF )