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On January 19, Alexandra Daddario changed her squeaky-clean image with a nude scene in HBO’s True Detective opposite Woody Harrelson.
Here is what you need to know about the 27-year-old actress and her racy new role.
1. She Got Totally Naked on TV
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In the first True Detective episode she appeared in, coincidentally called “Seeing Things,” she got completely naked.
She told MTV about her decision to take on the role:
I think one thing about this role for me was that it was a huge challenge for me, and I saw it as a good challenge. I saw it as an interesting challenge. I really wanted to be part of the show, and I understood why the nudity and all of that was required of the character…. The character is really different from anything that I’ve done before. The nudity was just part of that.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the show, which is an eight-episode series, is very popular.
Its debut had 2.3 million viewers, which is the biggest HBO series opening since Boardwalk Empire in 2010.
2. Woody Harrelson Helped Her Feel Comfortable Nude
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The actress credits the older actor for making her feel comfortable in this mature role.
Woody has done so many different things. He made the whole situation very comfortable. It wasn’t anything awkward in that sense. I tried not to think about it too much before shooting the more intimate scenes and just sort of did it. [Harrelson] has been there done that. He’s Woody Harrelson. If there’s anybody that I was going to be comfortable with, it’s somebody like him.
The show also stars Matthew McConaughey and Michelle Monaghan. It’s set in rural Louisiana and is about two state police detectives tracking down a serial killer.
From left, Matthew McConaughey, Michelle Monaghan and Woody Harrelson speak onstage during the ‘True Detective’ panel discussion. (Getty)
3. She’s Known for Her Role in the Kids’ Movie Series ‘Percy Jackson’
Costars Alexandra Daddario and Logan Lerman. (Getty)
Young fans, who know her as Annabeth Chase from the popular movies series, hopefully will not hear about her new venture.
In 2010, she was in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. She also starred in its sequel, Percy Jackon: Sea of Monsters. The movies are based on Rick Riordan’s book series.
At 16, she dropped out of high school for her first TV role in the soap opera All My Children. Originally cast only for a short term, the execs liked her so much, they gave her a contract.
Alexandra seems to have always wanted a “bad girl” role. In fact, she told viewlondon that her All My Children character, Laurie Lewis, did not interest her. “I was the good girl, I was boring,” she said.
4. She Was in the Music Video for Imagine Dragons’ ‘Radioactive’
On December 10, the American indie rock band Imagine Dragons released the music video for their hit song “Radioactive.” Beside featuring puppets and actor Lou Diamond Philips, it also had Alexandra play the female role.
Examiner explains the video’s plot:
The music video revolves around a mysterious female drifter (Daddario) who is on a quest to save her friends (Imagine Dragons) from the perils of a sinister, underground puppet-fighting ring.
5. She Grew Up in New York City
She was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and went to the Professional Children’s School, a prestigious school in New York City for child actors. The city gave her the opportunity to make it as an actress. She told The Pine Valley Bulletin, a site devoted to All My Children,
“Since I lived in the [New York] City where auditions and agents are very accessible, I have been doing it since I was a kid.”
Her parents, both lawyers, were new to the idea of acting as a profession.
She told viewlondon:
…they’re lawyers, my parents, so there are some similarities. I’m from New York, my parents are very supportive of me. I grew up in an environment where acting wasn’t necessarily considered a real career – you go to college, you go to Harvard and you become a lawyer or a doctor. But that wasn’t something that I loved and I knew that I wanted to be an actress at a very young age and I’m happy to be doing what I love to do and my parents are thrilled.
Leaving her home in NY for L.A. when she became a movie actress, she said she welcomed the change. She told nextmovie,
“There are great, great people in L.A. Anyone from New York complains about the people in LA, but there are really amazing, brilliant, wonderful people in L.A. Going onto the movie studio lots for the first time was this epic moment in my life. It was very, very cool. The town is all about movies — it’s wonderful.”