Actress ‘empowered’ by naked Sherlock role

The actress who played a whip-wielding dominatrix in Sherlock has described her role in the BBC1 drama as “empowering” and said she chose to get “completely naked” to film the controversial scenes.

The BBC received more than 100 complaints about the racy footage of actress Lara Pulver, who played the character Irene Adler in the New Year’s Day episode.

She appeared nude in front of Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Martin Freeman (Dr John Watson) in the pre-watershed BBC1 scenes, watched by more than 10 million viewers.

Pulver told the Radio Times: “Paul McGuigan (the director) very sweetly said to me, ‘OK, the choice is we spend hours shooting it to avoid seeing straps or we take all that off and shoot it quickly.’

“I thought I couldn’t put myself through being there all day, practically naked anyway, so I might as well get completely naked and get it done in a few hours.”

Asked by her co-star Una Stubbs, who plays Sherlock’s landlady Mrs Hudson: “So you took it all off?” Pulver replied: “Yes ... There’s nothing to hide behind, no mask, and something really empowering takes over.”

The actress said she identified with her TV alter-ego, who flirted with Holmes, then struck him on the face with a riding crop.