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EastEnders recruit stars’ real-life partners for intimate scenes

‘EastEnders’ have recruited stars’ real-life partners to film intimate scenes.

The BBC One soap has managed to get around some social distancing guidelines – which have been enforced as a result of the coronavirus pandemic – by enlisting actors’ real significant others as supporting artists on the programme.

Jon Sen, executive producer, said: "Our greatest challenge is that we have several family units, that’s the nature of EastEnders and soap, and families who would be in the same household, so not at two-metre distances, but obviously they are played by actors who are obeying social distancing, so there’s a huge challenge at the heart of it.

"For those really crucial moments where two characters kiss we’ve actually invited the real-life partners of the actors on to the set to be able to cheat those kinds of moments."

Jon believes ensuring intimate scenes can be acted out has "really added to the sense of life" on the soap.

He added: "We hit on the idea of supporting artists from the same household to reflect the world outside.

"Of course, they can get closer together than the two metres or they can be kissing in the street.

"It really adds to the sense of life."

This comes after it was revealed ‘EastEnders’ actors have still been able to shoot smooching scenes by using plastic screens, which are then edited out afterwards.

The soap will return to screens on September 7th, after being off air since June 16th after running out of episodes due to the coronavirus lockdown.