The Negotiated Nude Scene: ‘Obliterated’ Creators and C. Thomas Howell

1 of 6 | C. Thomas Howell bares all for “Obliterated.” Photo courtesy of Netflix

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 29 (UPI) — Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald combine bombastic action and raunchy comedy in Obliterated, premiering Thursday on Netflix.

Actor C. Thomas Howell originally planned to wear a prosthetic penis for a nude scene, but created a bit of legal drama when he opted to forego the prosthetic and go full frontal.

“What had been negotiated, talked about and assumed with C. Thomas Howell was that we would make a prosthetic before him that would look very real,” Heald told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. “It was a $10,000 prosthetic.”

Howell plays a bomb squad technician who parties hard after successfully defusing a bomb. Heald said the trio appreciated the show’s intimacy coordinators and contracts, laying out exactly what actors would show on camera.

“It’s crafted so that there can’t be a power struggle or anyone can’t coerce anybody into doing anything more than what they agreed to do,” Heald said. “I don’t think there ever has been a situation where somebody’s like, ‘I want to go way further.'”

In Obliterated, an entire task force celebrates after presumably saving Las Vegas from terrorists. But, when they learn there is still another active bomb in the city, they have to return to action before they have time to sober up.

Howell’s character, Hagerty, presents himself naked to the rest of the team before he passes out for several episodes. Heald appreciated Howell’s commitment to the joke and the team was able to revise his contracts.

“It just became a fun game of conversations with lawyers as the clock is running down saying, ‘We have a performer here who’s insisting that he gets fully nude,'” Heald said.

Hurwitz confirmed that other actors who appear naked in Obliterated used prosthetic penises. The show includes topless women, too, but Heald said they did not just want to have gratuitous female nudity.

“It’s definitely equal opportunity and probably unequal in favor of male nudity,” Heald said.

The rest of the team includes field agents Ava (Shelley Hennig), McKnight (Nick Zano) and Trunk (Terrence Terrell), sniper Gomez (Paola Lázaro), pilot Paul (Eugene Kim) and computer hacker Maya (Kimi Rutledge).

Schlossberg said the idea for Obliterated sprang from a hypothetical question about military service people celebrating a successful mission.

“Our brains tend to think, ‘Oh, what happens if they party too hard and they’re needed for something?'” Schlossberg asked rhetorically. “That’s where the comedy comes in.”

The trio originally conceived Obliterated as a movie. However, after several seasons of their hit Karate Kid series Cobra Kai, they realized they could explore Obliterated as an hour-long series and devote more time to each team member.

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