Bella Maclean reveals she insisted on a no-nudity clause in her Rivals contract because she didn't want to 'sexually exploit' Taggie
Published: | Updated:
She plays the wide-eyed innocent in a drama packed with adultery, nudity and debauchery.
But Bella Maclean has revealed she negotiated a no-nudity clause into her contract before taking on the role of Taggie O'Hara in Rivals.
The actress, 24, said she wanted to protect both herself and her character from being 'sexually exploited' in the raunchy Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper's 1988 bonkbuster.
Speaking to Harper's Bazaar UK for its December issue, she said: 'It was important because of how pure Taggie's character was. I didn't want to sexually exploit her, and I didn't want to do that to myself either.
'That was really important to me, and I think it will stay important to me. There are some things I just want to keep to myself.'
Ms Maclean added that she had no problem with her fellow cast members taking their clothes off for the show's many steamy scenes.
Bella Maclean has revealed she negotiated a no-nudity clause into her contract before taking on the role of Taggie O'Hara in Rivals
The actress said she wanted to protect both herself and her character from being 'sexually exploited' in the raunchy Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper's 1988 bonkbuster
Speaking to Harper's Bazaar UK for its December issue, she said: 'It was important because of how pure Taggie's character was'
She said: 'I don't judge anyone who does it. Sometimes it's so beautiful. If I had Victoria Smurfit's body, I'd probably be walking around naked!
'But in that sense, we're all lucky because there are amazing intimacy co-ordinators on our job. I know that's not the case for other people. We're all good friends who can just say 'No' to the directors and they'll listen.'
The first series opened with Alex Hassell's womanising Rupert Campbell-Black having sex in the cramped lavatory of Concorde before he and Emily Atack, 36, playing Sarah Stratton, were seen playing naked tennis.
The new run has proved just as saucy, with Danny Dyer, 49, appearing full-frontal as Freddie Jones, while Aidan Turner's character, Declan O'Hara, was also seen completely naked after a hotel-room encounter with his wife Maud, played by Smurfit, 52.
Ms Maclean plays Taggie as she falls for the older, Campbell-Black, played by Hassell, 46.
In Cooper's original novel, Taggie is 18 and Rupert is 37, but the television adaptation has aged her up to 20 – a change Ms Maclean has previously said Dame Jilly supported.
The actress previously admitted she worried about how their age-gap romance would be received by modern viewers, but defended it as 'a soul connection'.
'Because of the way it's done, because they really loved each other at first sight, I just feel like it's a soul connection with them,' she said.
Bella added: 'That was really important to me, and I think it will stay important to me. There are some things I just want to keep to myself'
Ms Maclean added that she had no problem with her fellow cast members taking their clothes off for the show's many steamy scenes
She said: 'I don't judge anyone who does it. Sometimes it's so beautiful. If I had Victoria Smurfit's body, I'd probably be walking around naked!'
Bella added: 'But in that sense, we're all lucky because there are amazing intimacy co-ordinators on our job. I know that's not the case for other people'
Ms Maclean plays Taggie as she falls for the older, Campbell-Black, played by Alex Hassell
The December/January issue of Harper's Bazaar UK is on sale from 6 November
The actress also said Dame Jilly's presence could still be felt throughout the new series, a year after the author's death, adding: 'Jilly is the heart of everything we do, and I feel her naughtiness a lot in the second half of the new season.
'This series is so juicy, it gets so intense. That's all Jillyness. She pushed things.'
The second half of the second series returns on Disney+ on November 11.
The December/January issue of Harper's Bazaar UK is on sale from 6 November.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.