Believe it or not, this is not something that happened to Joey Tribbiani on Friends — this is the world we live in. Thanks, 2020!
Yes, the coronavirus is still very much out there, but films and TV shows can’t wait forever to resume production. Instead they’re doing what they do best — getting creative. Blockbuster movies like Mission: Impossible are experimenting with COVID-free villages, but productions with lower budgets — like, say, soap operas which have to churn out over two hours of programming every week, don’t have that luxury.
Related: All The Movies Delayed By Coronavirus
But The Bold And The Beautiful is going back into production this week anyway, the first soap to risk it. So how does a TV show all about interpersonal relationships film while keeping its stars socially distanced?? The first thought was to cut the love scenes; after all, if it’s just talking, the actors don’t have to be too near one another — or even film at the same time! But that was a disaster for the 33-year-old show. Executive producer and head writer Bradley Bell told Forbes:
“We were cutting all of the kisses, and the shows weren’t the same.”
Yeah, without the kissing it’s just not bold or beautiful. The solution, however, is BOTH.
For the kissing, the cameras will just zoom WAY in to film only one performer. The actors will simply pretend to kiss their screen partners, who will be outside of frame. Bell explains:
“They’ll look like they’re nose to nose, in the throes of passion. But they’ll be shooting scenes all by themselves.”
But this isn’t General Hospital in the 1960s. There’s more than kissing on soaps these days. Well, sex scenes are being handled with even more ingenuity. Or wait, oddity? Yeah, both. Bell tells Forbes the show will use “a combination of stand-ins and blow-up dolls” for the raunchier love scenes. Yes, you read that right. Blow-up dolls.
Bell says:
“We have some life-like blow up dolls that have been sitting around here for the past 15 years, that we’ve used for various other stories — (like) when people were presumed dead. We’re dusting off the dolls and putting new wigs and make-up on them and they’ll be featured in love scenes.”
LOLz! We don’t know how they came up with this, but we can tell you the new SAG-Aftra guidelines for production safety don’t mention the words “blow-up doll” once. Honestly, we do not know how they think they’ll get away with it. There’s movie magic, and then there’s just wishful thinking…
We mean, can a blow-up doll under the sheets really take the place of Denise Richards?! They won’t have to completely. In certain love scenes, there’s another plan in place — actors’ spouses!
Yes, Bell says the show will film actors hooking up with their actual husbands and wives, standing in for their co-stars. It’s the strangest cheating they will ever do — though it’s probably not the most unbelievable thing to happen on a soap opera.
[Image via WENN/CBS/YouTube.]