‘General Hospital’ Family Addresses Ongoing Filming Hiatus & Challenges To Returning To The Set
ABC is now airing all reruns of General Hospital on weekdays and it is not yet known how long that will need to be done. The cast and crew had to stop working in mid-March due to California’s stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus pandemic and the stars seem anxious to figure out a way to return to work.
On Monday, the Instagram account for 2-year-old twins Theo and Erik Olson tackled this big unknown. Theo and Erik share the role of Wiley on General Hospital and their parents run the social media page.
The lengthy caption of the post addressed the question fans have frequently asked regarding when filming can start again, and a pretty thorough explanation of how complicated this is was included.
“The truth is we don’t know yet,” was part of the answer.
Deadline noted that on Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom was expected to announce some plans regarding the ability for television and film crews to begin working again. However, Newsom did not share anything in this regard during his Monday announcements. Instead, Newsom signaled during his Tuesday press conference that some type of announcement about this should come later this week.
In the meantime, General Hospital and other shows filmed in Los Angeles remain in a holding pattern. As the Olson Instagram post detailed, it’s a complicated situation to navigate.
“It’s a very tricky situation. Like I’ve said before #GH is a well oiled machine and there are SO many people working behind the scenes to make it a success. That does mean keeping everyone safe is a logistical nightmare,” the family noted.
Those in charge of production for General Hospital and other shows have to figure out how to manage the logistics and it will not be an easy task. Newsom indicated that his team is working with experts in television and film to try to formulate guidelines that will allow production to resume, but for now, specifics remain unknown.
“We are all SO anxious to get back to work!! We all miss our @generalhospitalabc family! We all want to get back to normal life. But sadly, the truth is that this virus will have deeply changed Hollywood and we won’t be returning to normal for a long while…” The Instagram post caption continued.
Fans are quite anxious to have new episodes airing again. At the same time, quite a few responded to this Instagram post noting that they want to see everybody involved stay safe and healthy.
Unfortunately, General Hospital fans will have to hang tight and tune in to Nurses Ball encore episodes for now. The good news is that it seems some guidelines will be determined later this week and that should allow production teams to start working on ramping things up again relatively soon.
