No kissing and Covid robots: inside the socially distant film set

How do you enjoy a socially distanced kiss on screen? Come to that, how do you film a socially distanced murder? And, between takes, can robots carry out COVID testing? These are just some of the perplexing issues that actors, writers and directors on film and TV sets have been grappling with of late. 

Hollywood productions, and their stars, haven’t been immune to the on-set stresses, an increasingly surreal side-effect of the pandemic. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence have been pictured wearing full plastic face visors on set in Boston for the forthcoming Netflix comedy Don’t Look Up. Tom Cruise, who is currently finishing up Mission: Impossible 7, recently ripped into two crew members at Warner Bros’ Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire, after he saw they were breaching social distancing rules: ‘I don’t ever want to see it again, ever!” he shouted. “If I see you do it again you’re ******** gone’.