For Spanish actress Penelope Cruz, appearing nude on screen is nothing extraordinary. She’s done it before — for more than eight films including the Italian release Don’t Move — and now she will be seen in the buff all over again for her steamy new project called Elegy.

This time, her co-star will be none other than Sir Ben Kingsley, who plays a charismatic professor losing his composure over a student played by Penelope, half his age.

The film is based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Roth’s short novel The Dying Animal. The movie shows a passionate relationship between a celebrated college professor (Ben Kingsley) and a young woman (Penelope Cruz) whose beauty destabilizes him.

Though Penelope has done screen nudity before, the voluptuous Volver star admits that topless scenes are not her favourite to shoot. She is particularly uncomfortable because her hairdresser mother, Encarna, and merchant father, Eduardo, aren’t thrilled by them, quite understandably.

Let’s see how Sir Ben deals with it. The audience, we are sure, won’t be disappointed.

...But Bond won’t bare all

There were rumours doing the rounds that Daniel Craig, the 40-year-old star who is the latest face of James Bond, would pose nude for the next 007 movie, Quantum Of Solace. But producer Barbara Broccoli has revealed that she couldn’t convince Craig to go the whole hog just yet.

“I’m always after him to take his clothes off, every day. I have to fight on behalf of all the women, and some of the men, too. I’m doing my best,” she insisted, tongue, we hope, in cheek.

Daniel Craig had set many hearts racing with his perfect physique, in a skimpy pair of swimming trunks in Casino Royale. If Bond does appear on screen in the buff, it would be a first for the franchise. So don’t bother holding your breath.