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"Lars von Trier&amp;#039;s explicit four-hour epic Nymphomaniac finally has its UK premiere this weekend, after a marketing campaign that has rightly spotlighted newcomer Stacy Martin&amp;#039;s performance. Martin plays the teenage and 20-something incarnation of Joe, the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac who is later played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, and whose life story is recounted throughout the film&amp;#039;s two volumes. Digital Spy sat down with Martin to discuss shooting the much-discussed sex scenes, her co-star Shia LaBeouf and the film&amp;#039;s provocative ending.    This is your first film. Would it be fair to describe it as a baptism of fire? &amp;quot;Nah, it&amp;#039;s what everyone does! [Laughs] Yes, definitely. I met the casting director Des Hamilton, and said &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m training, I&amp;#039;m in acting school and I really want to be an actress. Whether or not that&amp;#039;s possible is another question.&amp;#039; He said that he was casting for the next Lars Von Trier movie, &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s called Nymphomaniac, it has Charlotte Gainsbourg in it and you will have a porn double.&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m now going, I love Lars Von Trier but I don&amp;#039;t know this guy, it is never going to happen. I was wrong! Two weeks later I went in for an audition, I got re-called twice and then went to Copenhagen for a screen test and the rest is history.&amp;quot; The versions of Joe that you and Charlotte play are very different. Did you find the young Joe relatable? &amp;quot;Yeah, there is something when you&amp;#039;re young and you&amp;#039;re trying to find out who the hell you are and where you want to go. I think everyone has gone through that moment of going, &amp;#039;What am I doing, who am I?&amp;#039; I think in the formative years, what is so great about Joe is that she doesn&amp;#039;t care so much. She just really has her direction and continues straight on, but she is very curious so it allows her a lot of options. When she grows older, when she is 30 [and played by Gainsbourg], she becomes much more closed in because you don&amp;#039;t have that young curiosity, which is probably why the two versions are different.&amp;quot; Volume 1 is fairly empowering in its depiction of female sexuality. Did it feel that way to you? &amp;quot;Yes, it was fun, it was empowering and there is that line in the end in the second part, where Seligman says if a man walked down the train doing the same thing no-one would care. But because it is a woman, suddenly you are a bad person, you&amp;#039;re doing something wrong, you&amp;#039;re a slut. And it&amp;#039;s like, no! You know what, we&amp;#039;re women, we give birth to people here on this planet so give us a break and let us have a bit of fun! I think that&amp;#039;s great. To have the possibility to do that and do scenes like this\u00E2\u20AC\u00A6 not a lot of people are going to write films like Lars, so you really just have to grab hold of it.&amp;quot;  Is filming explicit sex scenes as awkward as people imagine? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not the most relaxing experience! It is quite strange, but also it is very, very technical. It almost becomes a bit boring because Lars gives you a lot of freedom when you&amp;#039;re filming in general, and then suddenly you are restricted into doing certain positions and doing this and being very specific. Because they have to match everything together [with the doubles], you just have to really obey what they tell you. So you just have to get on with it.&amp;quot; How did you find working with Shia LaBeouf? &amp;quot;Great. He has got a very special energy; he is very energetic and very dedicated. I think once he makes a decision to do something he will do it, he commits to it 100%. On set, he is working and he gives you a lot and so you&amp;#039;re not so conscious of working, you are just in the scene. All the work that you have done prior to coming on set is suddenly just there without you actually trying to conjure up anything, and he gives you that ability and it is really amazing.&amp;quot; What scenes were hardest to film? The scenes when Joe&amp;#039;s father is in the hospital must have been challenging in a very different way to the explicit scenes. &amp;quot;Yeah, in a completely different way. I think her father is the one thing she loves, the person she is the most connected to. And to lose that for anyone in life is just the most painful experience. So that was difficult emotionally, but it was great to be able to sort of leave a lot of it in open air. I didn&amp;#039;t want to set some idea of how she would react in my head. I did my work, and said, &amp;#039;Okay, how is she going to feel in this scene?&amp;#039; And then in the moment it sort of overcame me. It was very difficult, but rewarding.&amp;quot;  How different is the five-and-a-half hour extended cut to the four-hour theatrical version? &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re the same story, but basically that hour and a half more is made up of a few scenes, which I don&amp;#039;t want to ruin, and they are incredible. Because Lars was working on the uncut version, he spent a lot of time on it and you can sense that it is 100% him. When you watch it, everything is very Lars. He filmed it, he was there, he edited with the editor he has worked with for years, Molly [Stensgaard], so the cut one is the same film, but it&amp;#039;s like\u00E2\u20AC\u00A6 98% Lars. The five-and-a-half hours is a proper director&amp;#039;s cut.&amp;quot; This is such an unusual introduction to acting. Do you know what you&amp;#039;re doing next? &amp;quot;Starting with a film that is so unique and so out there gives me the possibility to work on projects that I really love, which is great. I really connected to that idea of just taking on parts that I feel passionate about, and roles that are challenging and roles that are perceived as difficult. For me, that&amp;#039;s my work as an actress and an artist, it&amp;#039;s to not be comfortable all the time and to show people something more than what they see everyday. If I&amp;#039;m just going to be smiling on the screen, I might not do it, I will do something else. And hopefully I will have the opportunity to do that. If nothing else happens, at least I will have done a Lars von Trier movie and I&amp;#039;ll be pretty happy with that!&amp;quot; The twist at the very end seems designed to provoke the audience, and it made me personally really angry! How did you react to that turn? &amp;quot;Funnily enough, I really like the ending. You just don&amp;#039;t expect it at all and it happens in the space of three lines and I just thought that&amp;#039;s great, because we&amp;#039;ve built this man [in Seligman] who has become the perfect character that everybody is going to relate to, and suddenly he f**ks up completely. He has completely sh**t on everything that he has done and suddenly he is not the person that you know. At least when people say &amp;#039;[von Trier] is treating women badly&amp;#039;, well, he makes men look like absolute idiots! At least the women are honest and true, and the men just go and f**k it up in the last moment! I thought it was great.&amp;quot; Nymphomaniac Volume 1 and Volume 2 will be released in cinemas from February 28, and through video on-demand from March 1. A special double-bill screening will take place nationwide this evening (February 22).   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/interviews/a553004/nymphomaniac-star-stacy-martin-explicit-sex-scenes-are-very-technical/>