Chris Messina and His Penis Star in a Sundance Film

Alert: A film called Digging for Fire premiered at Sundance and it’s about…something. The important part is that Chris Messina appears nude in it. Go see it.

The scene involves Messina (who has a small role) disrobing in the middle of a party and jumping into a pool, which was all his idea. How much nudity are we talking? The Hollywood Reporter claims that he “gets completely naked.” Vulture also assures that “unlike the full-frontal in The Overnight, it’s all real.”

These people love teasing us, so I’ll believe it when *I* see it. Director Joe Swanberg told an audience in a post-screening Q&A (during which the cast made lots of dick jokes):

“…I’m all about male nudity, which isn’t in movies enough. You know, there’s a lot of legal shit that goes into having people naked in a movie — there’s contracts involved and things like that — so obviously we didn’t do that because I didn’t know he was going to take his clothes off. So I wrote him afterward and I was like, ‘Well, I think I’m going to use it. What do you think about that?'”

Messina was game:

“He said, ‘Well, send it to me. I don’t want to be just an extra in your movie who got naked.’ And I was like, ‘All right.’ So I sent him a Vimeo link, and he was like, ‘I love it! Use the cock!'”

“Use the cock” is a great philosophy. According to Swanberg, the whole scene is “part of a long shot with a lot of other actors in the frame,” and it’s really no big deal.

Oh, the movie is about a married couple and a murder mystery and also stars Jake Johnson.