Jennifer Lawrence's Red Sparrow sex scenes an 'actual nightmare'

Jennifer Lawrence has revealed the troubles she faced filming nude scenes for her latest movie, Red Sparrow.

In a new interview, Lawrence revealed that signing up to the movie was "really scary" because she knew she would be agreeing to fully nude sex scenes.

She said she struggled with the decision after nude photos were hacked from her phone and leaked online.

"It was really scary to say yes to the [Red Sparrow] movie because I knew the only way to tell the story is if I agreed to really do the scenes and go full Monty," she told the Today show in Australia.

"It took a while to say yes – and the night before I didn't sleep at all and I was obviously really nervous because it is the actual nightmare of standing in front of a classroom naked.

"But then after I finished the scene, I felt empowered."

“It was really scary to say yes to the movie because I knew that the only way to tell the story is if I agreed to really do the scenes and go full monty...but then after I finished the scene I felt empowered.” - Jennifer Lawrence #9Today pic.twitter.com/tc3L98NEhX

— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) February 26, 2018

The Hunger Games star was devastated when her intimate photos were hacked and posted online in 2014 and felt like she got back "something that was taken from" her through those scenes.

She told 60 Minutes: "I realised that there was a difference between consent and not and I showed up for the first day and I did it and I felt empowered. I feel like something that was taken from me I got back and am using in my art."

Lawrence also revealed to the IB Times there was "a long period when I didn't want to be seen sexually and I didn't want anybody to see my flesh".

The 27-year-old actress previously admitted she was "still processing" the hacking, admitting it was "unbelievably violating".

She said last year: "When the hacking thing happened, it was so unbelievably violating that you can't even put it into words. I think that I'm still actually processing it. I feel like I got gang-banged by the f**king planet - like, there's not one person in the world that is not capable of seeing these intimate photos of me.

"You can just be at a barbecue and somebody can just pull them up on their phone. That was a really impossible thing to process.

"None of that was gonna really bring me peace, none of that was gonna bring my nude body back to me and Nick, the person that they were intended for. It wasn't gonna bring any of that back. So I wasn't interested in suing everybody; I was just interested in healing."

Red Sparrow is in cinemas Thursday.