OUTLAW King actor Chris Pine has said the reaction to his full-frontal nudity in the film has highlighted a double standard for male and female stars.

Pine appears nude in the film, in which he plays Robert the Bruce, but a slew of headlines referenced the brief moment. He said: “Firstly, in exploring this kind of man who is to be called king and treated like a king, I thought it was important to see the king and the animal, the man and the animal.

“That he is both violent and primitive and bestial, but also something else. So I thought to see the human de-clothed, and his animal self is really important.”

Pine added: “Florence [Pugh, his co-star] shows her entire body in this film, and no-one is talking about that. And people want to talk about my penis like we’re a bunch of teenagers playing spin the bottle.

“I’d love to have an interesting conversation about why is it funny or pithy or a conversation to be had about that, whereas Florence is not. Is she expected to do that because she is a woman and I’m not expected to do that because I’m a man? I don’t know, totally.

“But certainly there’s a lot of violence in this film and people get de-bowelled and stuff like that, and no-one wants to talk about that. And I think it’s certainly a marker of our puritanical culture where if people make love, or show what god gave us, it’s somehow NC-17 [a US film rating, where nobody under 17 will be admitted] and you can de-bowel, behead, you can do all sorts of crazy shit like that and people are like ‘yeah that seems right’.”

Scottish director David Mackenzie, with whom Pine previously worked on Hell And High Water, added: “I think it’s the social media age. This is the fifth film I’ve had full frontal male nudity, no-one’s ever had such a fuss about it. And it’s far less than I’ve ever had before, and it’s totally motivated. The guy is washing himself in a loch in the Highlands, and just pops out. I don’t know what the fuss is about.”

The film is released in cinemas and on Netflix on Friday.