Coronavirus: Elvis Presley film crew all shook up after close contact with Tom Hanks

In the days before he tested positive to coronavirus, Hollywood star Tom Hanks was in close contact with staff on his Elvis movie.

Hanks and Wilson today.

In the days before he tested positive to coronavirus, Hollywood star Tom Hanks was in close physical contact with staff on set of the Elvis Presley biopic as he underwent make-up testing and costume fitting.

The movie is in pre-production and has employed hundreds of cast and crew on the Gold Coast.

Filming of some scenes was expected to get under way next week before the set at Village Roadshow Studio in Oxenford was shut down on Thursday.

Hanks, who has been on the Gold Coast on and off for about six weeks, had most recently been participating in wardrobe and make-up testing, which brought him into proximity with costume designers and make-up artists.

The set of the multi-million-­dollar production has been locked down since the diagnosis of Hanks and wife Rita Wilson on Thursday.

A production insider said the positive test sparked “panic” on set, with staff fearing they would lose their jobs if the film was cancelled. Director Baz Luhrmann sent a letter to staff on Thursday morning saying production had been cancelled and would not resume until further notice.

Hanks, who alerted fans to his predicament on Thursday, spoke out on Friday from behind the walls of the Gold Coast hospital where he is in quarantine to tell fans that he and his wife were OK.

The Academy Award-winner posted an update on his social media pages on Friday afternoon.

“Rita Wilson and I want to thank everyone here Down Under who are taking such good care of us,” he wrote. “We have COVID-19 and are in isolation so we do not spread it to anyone else. There are those for whom it could lead to a very serious illness. We are taking it one day at a time. There are things we can all do to get through this by following the advice of experts and taking care of ourselves and each other, no?”

Hanks ended his post with a familiar line from his 1992 film A League of Their Own: “Remember, despite all the current events, there is no crying in baseball.”

The diagnosis also created chaos within the Nine Network after Wilson, who has performed sold-out shows as a singer in the past week in Brisbane and Sydney, appeared live in the station’s studio on Today Extra on Monday.

Nine enacted its “crisis response­ plan”, cleaning the set and forcing Today Extra hosts David Campbell and Belinda Russell­, who interviewed Wilson, to self-isolate for two weeks, along with other crew members asso­­ciated with the interview.

Campbell, who was tested for the virus but still awaiting results, said his children had joined him in 14-day isolation.

“We heed the advice of experts and will follow that,” he said.