Kate Winslet coaches Evan Rachel Wood on nude scene in HBO special

Evan Rachel Wood in 'Mildred Pierce.' (HBO)
Evan Rachel Wood got some sage advice from Kate Winslet about her first full-frontal nude scene: Just do it.
“I was a lot more nervous than I thought I was going to be,” Wood explained to xfinityTV.com about her role as Veda Pierce Forrester in the upcoming HBO miniseries, “Mildred Pierce.”
“I looked at Kate and she was like, ‘You’ve got to do it. Trust me, it’s so brave. Put a merkin on and you’ll be fine.’”
Wood had to delicately explain that because of the depression-era setting, she had to wear a hair piece, but—um, not for her head.
“Let’s just say, I had to wear a wig because it was in the '30s, and everything had to look like it was in the '30s,” Wood said with a laugh. “Kate helped me. She gave me strength. She kind of dared me. I also felt I had to prove it to myself. I had to do it at least once—get it all on film now so when I’m eighty I can look back at it and say, ‘Yeah! I did that!’”
Winslet, who plays the title role originated by Joan Crawford in the 1945 classic, is an old hand at baring all on screen. The Oscar winner disrobed for “The Reader” and famously posed au natural for Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic.”
"I think it's important that women on screen are portrayed as real women,” Winslet told People. “I'm comfortable in my own skin and I'm comfortable with all the imperfections that I have."