Dove Cameron Had to Shed ‘Purity Complex’ Before Filming Nude Scenes

Dove Cameron was hesitant to film nude scenes for her upcoming erotic thriller 56 Days.

In her June cover story for NYLON, the actress and singer, 29, explained that her Disney Channel past made her nervous to take on a role that required nudity, but a beach day with her boyfriend, Damiano David, in Italy helped ease her fears.

Cameron shared that David, who is Italian, has “way less hang-ups on the purity complex than Americans do.”

“I went to the beach with him during a break while filming, and all the girls were taking their tops off,” she recalled to the outlet. “He was like, ‘Nobody’s going to be staring at you. You’re totally safe. If you want to, then you’re free to do that.’ Not that he was giving me permission, but he was like, ‘You’ve never done this before. It’s normal.’”

The “Boyfriend” singer added that the experience helped her “lose my shame around my own sort of ingrained weird thing about nudity, which I didn’t think I had. I think it actually helped me fast-forward in my evolution.”

56 Days is an adaptation of the Catherine Ryan Howard novel of the same name. Cameron will star in the Prime Video series alongside Avan Jogia as a couple whose whirlwind romance results in a murder.

The actress was first linked to David, 26, in September 2023 after she was spotted attending one of his shows as the frontman of the Italian rock band Måneskin. The following February, Cameron and David made their public debut as a couple at Clive Davis’ annual Pre-Grammy Gala.

 In a 2024 interview with Cosmopolitan, Cameron said that she was “fascinated” by David the more she got to know him. 

“He presents in a way that seems very easily digestible and then you spend two minutes around him and you realize he is the kindest, most generous, most innocent, most giving person,” she shared. “He’s like a 1950s gentleman, angel, teddy bear. He’s the best person I’ve met in my life.”

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In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Cameron said she was grateful for her experience working on the Descendants films.

“[Making the movies] always felt like summer camp because we went away to do training for a month before filming started,” she recalled.

“And it was so — we were all so young — and we were all so green, and we made these very close friendships and bonds at a time in which most people are doing that with friends at school. And I know that a lot of Disney stars say that, but it truly felt magical, and it felt untouched and it felt like we were so present. It was this thing that can’t ever be replicated,” Cameron added.

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She also noted that working on the musical fantasy trilogy served as professional training.

“The making of those movies definitely made me who I am. It trained me to be an incredibly hard worker because those films — even though they’re children’s films — they were so hard to make, they were so hard to make,” Cameron said.

She added: “I think even as an adult now, I would go back and be like, wow, this is f—ing hard. But it’s a joy. We were safe. We were surrounded by people who wanted us to win, and we were there to explore and make mistakes, and it was just an invaluable experience. I really look back on those three summers […] as some of the most formative in my learning how to be a professional.”