Kate Mara is in the headlines this month for a film nobody can stream. Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard, in which she and her sister Rooney play twins, premiered at Venice on September 3.
Kate Mara Nude & Sexy Scenes Ranked
Ranked on how much of Kate you really see, then on fame. Doubles are flagged, not hidden.
1. The My Days of Mercy Love Scenes With Elliot Page (2017)
Opposite sides of an execution, one night and the morning after.
2. House of Cards S1E7: The Bedroom Scene (2013)
A reporter, a congressman and a deal that finally reaches the bed.
3. House of Cards S1E5: The Phone Photos (2013)
She undresses while he takes pictures. The bare backside is a body double, not Kate Mara.
5. House of Cards S2E1: The Walk to the Shower (2014)
Season two’s opening chapter. Every nude frame is a body double, not Kate Mara.
On September 21 the Daily Beast reported Orlando Bloom’s comments about a love scene he shot with the two sisters, and on September 22 Newsweek explained the backlash those comments drew. That same day her Wikipedia page drew 21,911 views. The film has no release date, so there is nothing from it to show you, and I won’t pretend otherwise. I’ve loved Kate Mara since Zoe Barnes, the Washington reporter who treated a congressman like a source to be squeezed, and I’d like you to meet her properly.
Here’s the confession the search bar won’t enjoy. For years the famous skin wasn’t hers. The nude shots in House of Cards belong to a body double, and I’ll say so every time it matters. Her first real nude scenes came later, in a small film about the death penalty that she produced herself, opposite a friend, on her own terms. I know what kind of website you’re on. So do I; I’m the one typing. What I can promise is that every scene below was officially released, stars a grown woman playing a grown woman, and was her call.
Watch First: The My Days of Mercy Love Scene (2017)
Mercy comes from a family that believes in capital punishment. Lucy’s father is on death row. Around the fifty-seven-minute mark, the two of them stop arguing about the state’s right to kill and start making the case for being alive. Read the rest on the love scene’s own page.
Stills, Title by Title
Two titles: one she produced, and one Netflix lit like a crime scene.
My Days of Mercy (2017)
House of Cards (2013–2014)
Why Now: A Herzog Film Nobody Can Watch Yet
At Venice, Bucking Fastard competed for the Golden Lion and drew a six-and-a-half-minute ovation; it has since screened at Telluride, Toronto and San Sebastián. Kate and Rooney play Jean and Joan Holbrooke, twins in a story loosely based on the Chaplin twins who gained notoriety in 1980s Britain. It’s the first time the sisters have appeared on screen together, and Kate described the roles as “total equals who speak in unison and do everything the same.”
At San Sebastián, Bloom described the love scene as “a very sincere sort of moment that was created,” and online backlash followed. Newsweek’s line on the release is the one that matters here: “The film does not currently have a theatrical release date.” Whether the scene includes nudity is unconfirmed, so I won’t describe it.
Born Into Football, Raised by Television
She was born on February 27, 1983, in Bedford, New York, into two NFL dynasties at once, the Maras of the Giants and the Rooneys of the Steelers. Most people with that family tree buy a box at the stadium. She became a working actor instead: Shari Rothenberg on 24, a ghost in American Horror Story: Murder House, a hiker in 127 Hours, an astronaut in The Martian, Sue Storm in Fantastic Four, a real-life Marine in Megan Leavey. House of Cards made her famous and got her an Emmy nomination in July 2014.
Her rule on nudity is short: “If it’s important to the story and tastefully done, I will choose to do certain things.” On House of Cards a double did them. On My Days of Mercy, a script that had been lying around for eight years, she and Page became the producers, and the nudity arrived with her name on the paperwork. In this town the women who get to decide are usually the ones whose names sit on the producing credit. Hers did.
She married Jamie Bell, her Fantastic Four co-star, in 2017. They have a daughter and a son. Say what you like about superhero reboots; that one produced a marriage.
What’s Next, and What Else Is Out There
This year has already brought The Dutchman in January and Imperfect Women on Apple TV in March, where she plays Nancy, the friend whose murder drives the mystery, opposite Kerry Washington and Elisabeth Moss. Episode 8 has a brief shot of Nancy scrolling through intimate selfies on her phone. Whether the body in that photo is really hers is unconfirmed, so it gets a sentence here and no page until someone can tell me. Elsewhere there’s a non-nude love scene with Sepideh Moafi in Class of ’09, and some underwear in Megan Leavey and Man Down. Bucking Fastard still has no release date.
The Bar Argument at Last Call
Is that really Kate Mara naked in House of Cards?
Mostly no. The bare shots in season 1, episode 5 and season 2, episode 1 are a body double, not Kate Mara, per aznude’s clip tags and Mr. Skin. She has said she flashed viewers for a second late in season one, but nobody has confirmed which shot that was, and guessing isn’t my job.
Is there a Kate Mara sex tape?
None that anyone has ever verified. The pages promising one are selling clicks, not cinema, and we don’t link them. The real scenes are all listed above, and each one was her decision.
When did she first do a nude scene?
In My Days of Mercy, which started shooting in September 2016; she was 33. Mr. Skin calls it her nude debut; after festival screenings, it finally reached home viewers online in May 2019.
Can I watch Bucking Fastard yet?
No. It has played festivals only, and there’s no release date.
Other Company Worth Keeping
- Elliot Page: Lucy, opposite her Mercy in My Days of Mercy.
- Kerry Washington: Eleanor in Imperfect Women.
- Elisabeth Moss: Mary in Imperfect Women.
- Sepideh Moafi: her Class of ’09 love scene partner.
Kate Mara on the Red Carpet
Off screen, she closed out September in the front row at the Max Mara show in Milan, in a graphic tan-and-black mini set with an oversized bow belt. The full look and every photo: Kate Mara wears Max Mara at Milan Fashion Week.
More actresses
Same rules, other stars: Brittany Snow, Dakota Johnson, Olivia Wilde and Vicky Krieps, all ranked from officially released films and shows only.