Tim Robbins backs Woody Harrelson’s call to end Covid protocols on set

Tim Robbins has backed Woody Harrelson’s call for Hollywood to end Covid protocols on film and television sets.

Sharing Variety’s write-up of Harrelson’s recent interview with the New York Times in which the actor decried Covid set protocols as “nonsense”, Robbins posted on Twitter: “Woody is right. Time to end this charade.” The Shawshank Redemption actor also tagged Sag-Aftra and the Actors’ Equity Association in his post so that both organizations would see it.

Speaking with the Times’s David Marchese, Harrelson, who is currently making press rounds for his new movie Champions, expressed concern for the future of indie movies given “all the Covid protocols” in place, calling such measures “absurd”.

Asked what was absurd about the measures, Harrelson responded: “The fact that they’re still going on!

“I don’t think that anybody should have the right to demand that you’re forced to do the testing, forced to wear the mask and forced to get vaccinated three years on,” he added. “I’m just like, let’s be done with this nonsense. It’s not fair to the crews. I don’t have to wear the mask. Why should they? Why should they have to be vaccinated? How’s that not up to the individual? I shouldn’t be talking about this [expletive].”

Harrelson reiterated that he was angry on behalf of set crews – “the anarchist part of me, I don’t feel that we should have forced testing, forced masking and forced vaccination. That’s not a free country,” he said. “Really I’m talking about the crew. Because I can get out of wearing a mask. I can test less. I’m not in the same position they’re in, but it’s wrong. It’s three years. Stop.”

Hollywood’s current Covid protocols, which were set to end on 31 January, will now expire on 1 April.

Robbins is not the only prominent actor to align with Harrelson’s views. Fran Drescher, current president of Sag-Aftra, touted the end of vaccine mandates during her speech at the guild’s annual awards show last month. “As the nation declares an end to the Covid emergency this May, I hope we will see everyone return to work in equal opportunity,” the 65-year-old actor and The Nanny star said in her speech.

“Our industry brings billions of production dollars to states across the nation, but if they want our business, let’s wield our financial influence to make governors act in the best interest of freedom, diversity, inclusion and democracy,” she said during her speech. “As my character Bobbi Flekman said in This Is Spinal Tap – money talks and bullshit walks!”

Drescher had previously made her stance known in a video posted to Twitter, in which she called such mandates “an infringement on the disabilities act, the freedom of religion act and body sovereignty.”

Harrelson’s interview was posted days ahead of his stint hosting Saturday Night Live on 25 February, during which he generated controversy with a Covid conspiracy joke. The actor spent the majority of his opening monologue building up a joke about the “craziest script” he had ever read.

“So the movie goes like this,” he explained. “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over.

“I threw the script away,” Harrelson added. “I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.” He appeared to refer to Covid mandates and vaccines, which he has criticized in recent years.