Like all actors these days, Elizabeth Berkley is a student of the human condition, engaged in diligent research that might deepen her artistic understanding. And so when she won the role of the professional stripper Nomi in Showgirls, the big-budget “adults-only” movie that opened to much fanfare on Sept. 22, she friended professional strippers to plumb the depths of their lives, as method actors do. As she reports in recent interviews, she ” learned a lot from the women who take off their clothes for a living.”
At first blush the statement may seem odd, since it suggests that Elizabeth Berkley is a woman who doesn’t take her clothes off for a living, notwithstanding the two-hour movie currently in general release in which she does take her clothes off, repeatedly, and presumably not for free. Her stripper confidante are entitled to wonder: If Elizabeth Berkley doesn’t take her clothes off for a living, then who does?
