The Kissing Scene On Coronation Street’s Friday Episode Was Enacted By Real Life Couple

While Tyrone and Alina shared a kiss on Friday’s episode on Coronation Street, many viewers will be left wondering just how they filmed it following the social distancing guidelines.

The answer: real-life kissing doubles.

Actors Alan Halsall and Luxandra Porojnicu were photographed talking before their kiss, but they did not come within two meters of each other, ITV officials said.

Instead, regular Corrie extra Alex Mulvaney and his wife Hannah then stepped in for the romantic moment.

Initially Nervous

“My agent said that Coronation Street needed extras who were in a support bubble, and because I used to be an extra three times a week and they knew half of my family had done extra work on the show, it worked out perfectly,” explained Mulvaney.

“My partner Hannah hadn’t done any extra work before, but my agent knew she had dark hair like Alina’s so I asked her if she wanted to do it,” he added.

“Hannah was initially nervous, but she’s a big fan of Coronation Street.  I had been on set many times before, and I was able to talk her through what to expect – she was a bit star-struck when she saw the actors.”

Like many other shows, Coronation Street stopped recording during the first national closing in March 2020 and began recording in a restricted way a few months later.

Porojnicu, who plays Alina’s role, said the (non) kissing site was “challenging” but “very fun”.

Recording

Although their characters look like they are sitting together, the actors are photographed with a separate conversation. The photos were put together during post-production, giving the illusion that they were close to each other.

The design department

taped a pair of sunglasses onto a telescopic radio aerial to ensure the actors had the correct eye line, so they would appear to be looking into each other’s eyes.

“It was difficult not being able to look into each other’s eyes for the emotion of the scene but Coronation Street came up with a clever way to cheat that with sunglasses on an aerial,” the actress said.

“Everything that’s been said in the scene leads to the kiss which is very important for Alina because it is the first time that she has said out loud to Tyrone that she is falling for him.”

‘Smoke and Mirrors’

Producer Iain MacLeod praised the program writers, actors and program staff for “working smart” limits, in the best part of a difficult year.

While the characters Debbie and Kevin were locked in the fridge, the actors were screened by Covid in advance and put on a three-day screening, such as Alya, Yasmeen and Geoff in the rooftop scenes of the 60-year-old December show.

“We have therefore told the same stories throughout the pandemic that we would have told in ‘normal’ times,” said MacLeod.”So we’ve talked about the same issues throughout the epidemic that we could have talked about on a regular basis,” MacLeod said.

“But it just felt wrong to tell a story of an illicit liaison, where someone betrays their partner based on lust and sexual attraction, only for us not to see any of the chemistry and closeness.”But it seemed wrong to talk about illicit intercourse, when someone betrayed his partner on the basis of lust and sexual attraction, and we alone did not see any chemistry and intimacy.

“That’s why the smoke and mirrors here.”