While much of the entertainment industry remains at a screeching halt, director Paul Schrader has been barreling through the completion of his film The Card Counter. This gave star Tiffany Haddish a front-row seat to life on a film set in a post-coronavirus world, and as it turns out, it wasn’t half bad. The comedian joined fellow stand-up Esther Povitsky for the latest episode of our Instagram series Two Friends: A Nice Time Hanging Out With People Who Know Each Other Well, and she walked Povitsky through what life might look like for many actors over the next year.
For the shoot in Mississippi, Haddish stayed in a rented house along with her own personal hair and makeup team, who were all tested together before production resumed. Her hair and makeup were done in the rental house, and Haddish would then travel to set where she would immediately go to her trailer, dress, and then be called to a totally ready-to-go set. She noted that masks were worn by everyone until “action†was called, at which point the actors would remove them, and that whenever even so much as a lighting change was made the actors would return to their trailers. “You just have time to focus on what you’re there for, nobody’s talking your ear off,†she said, before adding that the highly regimented day made things go much faster. So, it seems like movie sets might be one of the few things to actually improve under pandemic regulations, at least from one actor’s perspective.
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