Jonathan Lipnicki has gone from playing an adorable kid in Hollywood blockbusters to baring it all in a movie opposite A-lister Robert Pattinson.
Lipnicki became a household name overnight when he starred alongside Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger in Jerry Maguire and again when he led an ensemble cast made up of Geena Davis, Michael J. Fox, and Nathan Lane in Stuart Little.
But the star is now 35 years old and returning to the big screen in Primetime, and instead of being remembered for his adorable line delivery and his big round glasses, Lipnicki’s most memorable scene will show him completely naked.
Audiences will be met with a full-frontal scene when Lipnicki plays a pedophile in Primetime, which is loosely adapted from an Esquire article by Luke Dittrich about Chris Hansen’s tenure on the controversial docuseries To Catch a Predator.
Much like the original show, the film shows Hansen (Pattinson) confronting suspected sexual predators, including Lipnicki as a character known only by the screen name of Crazyfrog73, who gets caught naked trying to take advantage of an underage boy.
This clearly wasn’t the kind of nudity most actors are used to. There was no hot and heavy lead-up with an adult co-star; instead, Lipnicki had to grapple with his full frontal scene taking place while playing a pedophile.
“As actors, we pray for dark material and for things we can really sink our teeth into. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, ‘Am I as courageous an artist as I say I am?’ I had to answer that question, and I was courageous enough to take the plunge,” Lipnicki told The Hollywood Reporter.
Lipnicki admitted to having “anxiety” about taking on the role, but pushed himself to do it anyway.
“If you’re full frontal in another type of scene, it’s different,” he said. “The pedophile element by itself is terrifying to tackle, and then you add the nudity. Not only are you a pedophile — you’re a naked, full-frontal pedophile. It was intimidating, to say the least. Even after I shot it, I thought, ‘I really hope I made the right decision.’ But I’ve tried to live by the idea that, when it comes to art, if something scares you, most likely you should do it.”
Luckily, Pattinson and director Lance Oppenheim made filming such a tough and vulnerable scene fun and collaborative.
“Even though we were shooting an extremely dark and gross situation, they created an atmosphere that felt comfortable in the uncomfortable,” Lipnicki said.
