‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Boss Brad Bell Didn’t Expect the Viral Reaction to His Comments About Using Blow-up Dolls
It was the interview heard around the world! Folks on social media couldn’t stop talking about how one of the remaining daytime soap operas on television, The Bold and the Beautiful, would employ blow-up dolls as one of the substitutes needed during romantic scenes in the age of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Head writer Brad Bell says he didn’t even realize that his comments would
‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ is being inventive for intimate scenes during the pandemic
The soap opera returned to production last month with different safety guidelines in place. Specifically, the show has had to rethink the way they did intimate scenes (especially sex scenes) that required actors to be super close together
In an interview with Forbes, Bell said, “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.”
In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he also explained that the real-life partners of the actors will also be used when they can.
“We’re also bringing in, in some cases, the husbands and wives of the actors as stand-ins for their [characters’] significant others,” he said. “So if you see hands touching faces in close proximity from a wide shot, instead of a stunt double we’ll have a love-scene double, where it will be the husband or the wife doing the actual touching. Then when we edit it together, it will look like our couple on-screen.”
Brad Bell wasn’t expecting for his comments about the blow-up dolls to blow up
According to Bell, he was not expecting his comments about the temporary era of romance on television to explode the way that they did.
“I didn’t quite expect the reaction,” he said in an interview with Soap Opera Digest. “They’re all kind of innocent tricks of the trade. We’re doing the [doll] body doubles as basically props to get that proximity that we need.”
Bell also explained that they had blow-up dolls already because they ha used them already…just not recently. “Well, we’ve had a few over the years/ There have been stories in the past that we’ve made them. We keep everything over there at TV City. We dug them out and put them back to use and then we bought a few other ones that are readily available.”
The head writer also revealed an actress whose spouse who has already been a body double for their on-screen partner. Katrina Bowden, who plays Flo, has had her husband, Ben Jorgensen, on set. Bell said, “He was great. He is very close to the same build, same hair color and look as Darin Brooks [Wyatt]. When you dress him up in matching wardrobe and shoot over his back shoulder, it’s virtually impossible to tell them apart. You’ll never know the difference.”
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS.
