Locke & Key season two is finally out on Netflix, but putting the show together during a pandemic came with its fair share of challenges.
Cast members Laysla De Oliveira (who plays Dodge) and Aaron Ashmore (who plays Duncan Locke) told Narcity all about life on set during COVID — from testing to finally seeing what their coworkers look like.
'Locke & Key' Cast Talks Filming during COVID And 'Face Reveals' #shortswww.youtube.com
How did COVID affect the filming process?
"We were supposed to shoot over the summer, but because COVID locked everything down, we didn't start shooting until later so all of a sudden all these storylines that were supposed to be summer stuff turned into winter stuff," Ashmore explains.
"Basically, the writers had to readjust everything; something that would have been a fall fair now turned into winter fair and stuff like that."
"And my god, was it cold this year out there on Lake Ontario!" he laughs.
What was it like working on set during a pandemic?
"One of the things that I found was so cool was that I didn't personally know what a lot of the crew members looked like. They had to be completely masked up around us because we're completely unmasked," Ashmore says.
"And to occasionally get a chance to see somebody, like [when] they're having a coffee [...] and being like, 'oh my god!' What you projected somebody to look like from their personality and their voice to who they actually were was really, really cool, so that was really a special highlight to get to actually see what people look like."
"[I was there for a] face reveal once," De Oliveira recalls. "He showed us his face and just to see you see him, it's like 'wow, this is what you look like!'"
"I almost cried!" adds Ashmore. "It felt very emotional because I'd been working with this guy for months [...] and to not really know what somebody looks like, and to have that reveal, [...] it was emotional."
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Did you have to take COVID tests in order to work?
"I lost count after 50," Ashmore admits. "Because it was every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they would do them. But I mean, as annoying as that is, to me, I felt so safe and I feel like Netflix did such an amazing job."
"The unions and the government creat[ed] a really safe work environment for everybody, and particularly us because we were completely exposed," he says, referring to the fact that actors had to be unmasked in order to film their scenes.
"My hat's off to to Netflix and to the Locke & Key production for making us feel so safe."
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.