Zoe Saldaña in The Losers (2010): The Scene She Rewrote

Most actresses get handed the nude scene. Zoe Saldaña got handed one, handed it straight back, and won the negotiation.

The Losers (2010): Aisha and Clay, from the fight to the sofa (1m00s)

What happens in The Losers

Sylvain White’s comic-book caper strands a Special Forces team in Bolivia, presumed dead, until a mysterious woman named Aisha turns up offering their leader, Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a shot at the man who betrayed them. She has her own agenda, naturally. Aisha wants revenge for her father.

In his room, their sparring stops being verbal. She strips to her bra and panties, climbs into his lap, and when the bra finally comes off the camera gets her bare back and nothing more before the two of them end up under a blanket on the sofa. That framing was her doing. “The way that scene was written in the original script, my character was naked,” she told Parade, as quoted by Digital Spy. She told the director there was “no way I’m going to be nude because it just isn’t necessary or even believable,” and after a negotiation, “I ended up in my bra and panties. I don’t mind using my physical assets as a weapon, but there’s a limit.” Mr. Skin logs a second, briefer underwear moment later in the film.

She was 31 during the July to October 2009 shoot, much of it in Puerto Rico. Weeks later, promoting this very film, she told Movies.ie that what cinema lacks is sex, and that she misses it, since sex is the natural thing on screen and guns aren’t. Both positions are true of her at once, and it’s the most grown-up position in this whole business.

It’s seventh on the Zoe Saldaña hub. For a film where the most famous shot wasn’t even her, see the Colombiana morning after.