Casper Van Dien Dishes on “Starship Troopers'” Naked Shower Scene, Explains Why the Director Stripped Down Too (Exclusive)

The actor looks back on filming the sci-fi movie's infamous moment — and reveals why Paul Verhoeven took his pants off on set

• Casper Van Dien says he still has fans of Starship Troopers "yelling quotes" at him in public
• The 1997 film's well-discussed and somewhat controversial shower scene took 11 hours to film, Van Dien tells PEOPLE
• The actor reveals director Paul Verhoeven also dropped his pants on the set while the scene was being filmed

While Casper Van Dien has starred in All American, the short-lived primetime soap Titans and in movies like Sleepy Hollow and Alita: Battle Angel, the actor will likely be most remembered for playing Johnny Rico in the Starship Troopers franchise, which kicked off with the 1997 sci-fi action movie about an interstellar war with an alien species.

Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the movie was adapted from Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel and starred several rising stars of the '90s, including Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Patrick Muldoon and Neil Patrick Harris. The star-studded crew appeared as young and sexy military recruits who find themselves on various ends of Earth's battle with bug-like creatures known as Arachnids. 

Although Starship Troopers — which has become something of a cult classic, with the cast recently reuniting at New York Comic-Con on Oct. 17, 2024 — featured several memorable moments, the most infamous one is the group shower scene, which saw Van Dien, Meyer, Busey and other cast members strip down as their characters revealed their reasons for enlisting. 

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Now 30 years after the movie was first released on Nov. 7, 1997, Van Dien, 55, is looking back on his love for the franchise, filming that particular scene — something that also has been discussed and dissected by the media at length — and explaining why Verhoeven, 86, also stripped down on set. 

"When I read that scene, I basically, if you want the dead honest truth, I was like, 'Oh s---, no, I gotta do that scene. Oh my God, what am I gonna do?' " Van Dien admits to PEOPLE. "So, you know, you're like, 'Oh my God, I'm gonna be naked in front of a whole bunch of people and in the shower for a long time.' "

Adding that "it takes a long time to shoot a scene," the actor says that it was roughly an 11-hour shoot. "That's a long shower," he quips. 

When it came to actually filming it, he recalls that he was initially "really uncomfortable" and "really nervous," but then after a while, "I didn't even care anymore. I just wanted to do the scene, get it done and make sure I was doing the job right." He deadpans, "It was not the hardest scene to shoot, but it was definitely challenging." 

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When it comes to rumors that the crew also got naked on set, Van Dien clarifies that they did not ("They were not. That was not true"), but does confirm that Verhoeven did strip down before filming. "Paul did drop his pants," he says, adding that it was only after Meyer's urging him to. 

"Paul goes, 'Are you ready to shoot?' And Dina goes, 'Well, if it's so easy, Paul, why don't you do it?' And he dropped his pants. And I go, 'Oh God,' " the actor recalls, adding that after the director took off his pants, cinematographer Jost Vacano, "who used to live in nudist colonies," also dropped trou.  

But when it came time to call action, Verhoeven "pulled up his pants. He goes, 'Okay, let's shoot.' And I'm like, 'Thanks a lot, Dina.' She goes, 'I had no idea he would do it.' " 

While he laughs off the moment, Van Dien does admit that it "is probably inappropriate now. They would probably get in trouble nowadays," adding that "now, forever, it's something I saw and I have Dina to thank for that." 

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When it comes to how the scene was received, he agrees that "usually people don't talk about the subversiveness of it too much." In fact, he still believes that most audiences missed the point of the movie when it first came out, saying that "they didn't understand that it was satire." The actor added that Verhoevern — who is also known for directing Basic Instinct, RoboCop, Showgirls and Total Recall — "is incredibly smart and wanted to make movies that get people into discussion." 

That said, Van Dien is okay with "still talking about it 28 years later." It's also why he's still happy to be part of the franchise. Since the initial film's release, he's reprised his role as Johnny in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder as well as the animated installment, Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars, and various video games, including the newly released Starship Troopers: Continuum, which is available on Meta Quest 2 and 3 as well as PlayStation VR2. ("Killing bugs in VR world is amazing," he says of the latest game in the series.)

Looking back on the first movie, Van Dien says it "gave me my career, basically." He adds, "It's something that people always associate with me. I can't go anywhere without people yelling quotes at me." 

"When you can have a movie that affects people in that way, in that depth, it doesn't matter what it is," he says of fans who have told him how much Starship Troopers has had a lasting impact on them over the years, "This movie, for some reason, really resonates with people."