‘They are wanting to help their people’: therapy offered to film casts and crews dealing with difficult subject matter and stresses and strains of the job

Covid-19 rules added to the stress of working long hours under pressure on a film set. Then there was the film’s subject matter: suicide. So therapy was offered

On-set counselling is rare in the US and the move was so popular during the making of The Son, producer Joanna Laurie plans to offer virtual counselling again

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Mental health support on film sets is being talked about more since the Covid pandemic. Hugh Jackman (above, left) and Zen McGrath in a still from The Son, one of the recent productions where counselling was offered to cast and crew. Photo: Sony Pictures Classics

Published: 4:15pm, 13 Jan 2023

In the summer of 2021, when producer Joanna Laurie was planning production of The Son, a drama from Oscar-winning writer and director Florian Zeller, she knew stress levels would be exponentially high for cast and crew. They had to contend with strict Covid-19 safety protocols and the movie’s difficult subject matter: suicide.

So the London-based producer did something unconventional: she arranged to hire a company that would provide confidential virtual therapy sessions to anyone on set who needed it during shoots in New York, London and France. The programme was so popular, she plans to replicate it on other productions.

“We just had to make completely sure that in the process of making a movie about mental health, that we really took total care of the cast and crew who are going to be dealing with this, which is a very sensitive subject,” said Laurie, a producer at See-Saw Films.

“I think it’s something that we’ll see a lot more of.”

Film producer Joanna Laurie hired a company that offered counselling to the cast and crew of ‘The Son’. Photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images

Regardless of the subject matter, film and TV sets can be stressful and dangerous places to work. The pandemic added a raft of anxieties as cast and crews returned to work to face rigorous safety protocols such as testing, masking and social distancing.