I’m the Naked Guy in the New ‘Naked Gun’

For a movie called The Naked Gun, there’s not a whole lot of nudity. There’s Liam Neeson’s bare ass — which I assume is played by a double — and one very ripped, entirely naked guy whose sperm count gets treated by lasers. 

Since Neeson’s ass was unavailable for comment, I reached out to filmmaker Matthew Stubstad about how he came to be the naked guy in the new Naked Gun.

So how did you end up in The Naked Gun as the naked guy?

My wife, Elissa Aron, was the writer’s assistant on the movie, and they were casting the role of the naked man, as it said in the script. I don’t think the team quite loved any of the people that were presented. My wife showed them a photo of me, and they said, “Looks good.” So there’s a bit of nepotism there. She was actually playing a waitress on the same day I was on set, which was pretty cool.

Did you have to do anything to prepare?

I found out about three weeks beforehand while I was drinking a beer with some friends. I finished that last beer, and I was like, “Well, I guess I’m not having that for a while,” and I started working out like crazy. I just watched some YouTube videos on how those bodybuilder guys do it and followed their protocols. I went to the health food section in Target and bought everything that was a protein version of normal foods. Then I was kind of living off of meat and cheese and protein things. I basically cut out all sugar and carbs for three weeks, and I was running probably six miles a day leading up to that. Besides my wedding, I’ve never been more motivated.

What was the actual shoot like?

I was a little nervous, but once I saw how everybody was so kind and nice and fun, I relaxed. The stars of the movie quickly learned my first name. In between takes, Liam Neeson was like, “Hey, Matthew, you’re doing great, man,” and Danny Huston was joking with my wife like, “You’re a lucky lady, look at this guy!” 

They really treated me like an equal, and we all took a picture together afterwards. It just really spoke to the caliber of people working on the project.