Outside of hospitals, there’s no job I’m aware of that requires you to mask up in 2023, but apparently COVID protocols are still in place on some film sets. One person who flat out refuses to adhere to these rules is screen legend Tilda Swinton, who made her feelings known during a keynote talk at the SXSW Film & TV Festival in Texas this week.
Delighted that audience members no longer had to wear masks to attend such events, Tilda said:
I’m about to shoot a picture in Ireland, and I was told to wear a mask at all times, and I’m not.
Weirdly though, the 62-year-old also admitted that she has already had COVID-19 multiple times, and at one point was unable to get out of bed for three weeks. She also says she’s suffering from long Covid, which has affected her memory:
I was coughing like an old gentleman who smoked a pipe for 70 years, and had nasty vertigo. I got off relatively lightly, but the worst thing is how it affected my brain.
I did two films that I had to learn a lot of text for. I’m normally quite quick at studying, and picking stuff up, but this was like chewing a really big piece of gum. I couldn’t remember my lines.
See? It wasn’t that bad – she was only bedridden and coughing like a 70-year-old smoker for 3 weeks. And suffering from long-term memory loss! Totally normal, right?
So given her experience with COVID it’s a bit surprising that Tilda Swinton refuses to follow COVID rules on set, but then I’m pretty sure masks have been proven to be largely ineffective anyway. Even still, it makes sense that film sets remain paranoid over COVID-19. Shooting films or TV is usually done under a very tight schedule so anyone getting COVID for 2 weeks will be sure to screw things up for everyone involved. Although the masks are obviously off when they’re shooting scenes and they’re probably all hanging out/eating/drinking together as soon as they wrap up every day, so who even knows what the point is.
Anyway, I’m sure she’s not the only actress who feels this way. Probably smart waiting until 2023 to say it, though. For the $9 million film offer that Ice Cube lost out on because he refused to get his COVID jab, click HERE.
