IT'S the role most actresses would commit murder to play - stripping off with the world's sexiest man in the most talked about film of 1999.

But for Hampshire model Louise Taylor, it wasn't so much a case of Eyes Wide Shut as Blouse Firmly Buttoned when she appeared in the steamy blockbuster.

Movie moguls asked Louise, 27, if she would go nude in the sizzling Stanley Kubrick psychosexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut, which is about to hit British screens.

Louise, who left Chandler's Ford aged 18 to seek fame and fortune as a top international model, appears on the arm of Cruise in the opening sequence of the controversial film.

The former Barton Peveril College student said: "There is nudity in the film and I was asked if I would go nude. But I said that I really did not want to do it.

"I was not prepared to get my kit off - not even for Tom Cruise! I did not want him to see me naked."

The movie marks Louise's big screen debut - but she has graced the pages of top women's magazines and scores of television commercials.

Teenager Louise drooled over Cruise in the block-buster Top Gun.

"I thought the he was really gorgeous," she said. Louise also enjoyed working alongside Mrs Tom Cruise - Nicole Kidman, who plays the wife of a physician (Cruise) whose erotic confession sends him on a journey of sexual discovery.

In the film's opening sequence, a party is in full swing and Louise plays a model called Gayle in a scene she spent two weeks filming.

She said: "I am wearing a turquoise blue sparkly dress. I have had too much to drink and I am trying to seduce Tom Cruise.

"It really is the catalyst for the whole film.'' Louise found Tom Cruise "incredibly charming" - but she does not get to kiss him in the film.

Louise also liked director Stanley Kubrick - the reclu-sive genius behind 2001, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, who died in March, shortly after the final edit.

"I know there has been a lot of controversy about his films but I found him a lot gentler than I expected," she said

"He had a great sense of humour and was very likeable."

The £40 million film made £33 million at the American box office.

Louise and her director husband Jason Smith enjoyed the glitz of the film's Hollywood premiere.

And she went Beverley Hills shopping with her mum, Brenda Sedgwick, who lives in Lakewood Road, Chandler's Ford, to pick the right dress for the night.

Eyes Wide Shut will be released across Britain next Friday.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.