Early breakfast to hotels at 3am: The daily routine for celebs filming in The Celebrity Traitors castle

For the cast of The Celebrity Traitors, filming from Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands might sound like a pretty comfortable gig. Play a game and spend time in a castle? Just like a holiday.

Well, while they’re not wrong that it seems like a great experience, a holiday it is not. The filming schedule is intense, and a lot is expected of the cast. The celebrity cast members are treated in exactly the same way as those filming for the civilian Traitors, so whatever has been said about filming can apply to both versions. 

So, from breakfast to going back to their hotels in the early hours, here’s the full filming schedule for The Celebrity Traitors. 

The cast sleep elsewhere, and are transported early for breakfast 

First thing, the celebs are picked up from nearby hotels, and taken to the castle for breakfast scenes. They are on lockdown in lodgings nearby, and Jonathan Ross said that for the celebrity show, this was a hotel.

“You wouldn’t usually stay there for more than a few nights at a time, I guess, so all of us found it towards the end a bit claustrophobic,” he said. “You don’t even have a phone in the room. When you want to order food, or you want to talk to someone about something, you can stick a laminate under the door.”

The cast don’t have hair and makeup or anything like that, so if they want to look good for filming, they need to wake up earlier and get ready themselves. Plus, in a big production secret, the cast eat at their hotels beforehand, and the breakfast scene in the castle is largely just for show. 

Former cast members have said the set-up castle breakfast is “dry”, “not very nice” and some of the food on the table literally isn’t even real. It’s usually just a selection of fruit and other cold plates, that the celebs don’t even eat. 

Filming for the missions takes place during the day

via BBC

Former cast members have said straight after breakfast, filming for the missions take place. Then, there’s a break for lunch. Unlike breakfast, lunch and dinner has been described as “delicious and varied, everyone’s diets and tastes accounted for.”

After lunch some of the confessionals and other bits will be filmed, before a short dinner, and then onto roundtable filming. Some of the scenes we see with the cast chatting around the castle and in the bar are filmed after lunch, but sometimes the cast retire back to the bar after the roundtable, too. 

During production, the cast are on lockdown 

When filming is taking place, The Celebrity Traitors cast are effectively on lockdown. They don’t have access to the outside world, internet or telephones, and can’t communicate with each other outside the bits of the show we see. 

Every single cast member has a member of production with them at all times, meaning their daily routine is quite limited. 

via BBC

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Psychological check-ins take place daily

Executive producer Mike Cotton told The Express that cast members have round-the-clock access to welfare, and psychological checks take place every day.

“It’s an ongoing cycle every single day,” he explained. “We have a psychologist on hand doing regular check-ins and a team watching everything that’s filmed. Any concerns, they step in.”

Paloma Faith further explained she regularly visited a therapist when she was filming The Celebrity Traitors. “It is not on camera – I went to see them all the time. Yeah it was a therapist,” she said.

The roundtable and evening shots can go on late

via BBC

It’s been said in the past that filming for The Celebrity Traitors can sometimes go on until around 3am. At the very least, Claudia said they can be filming until midnight. The cast members don’t have access to the time when they’re on the show, but have previously said they believed filming for a roundtable went on for around four or five hours a time. Woah!

“I can’t really talk about it, but you basically leave the castle one by one,” former cast member Wilf Webster told Heatworld. “I assume if they want to hold Traitors back for filming, they’ll leave it so no one else can see. Maybe film at 3am or something.”

Speaking on Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett’s Dish podcast, Claudia Winkleman confirmed filming goes on late. When asked about it, she said: “Probably midnight because it gets dark incredibly late, so you’re filming really late.”

When the cast leave the castle, they then won’t see one another until breakfast the next day. “When they come into the castle in the morning it’s like a military operation — and the same when they leave,” Claudia said.

Back at the hotels, there’s a bit more free reign with food. Cast members in the past have said they often got food deliveries to their room.

But, they have a day off!

via BBC

It’s not all work and no play! The show is filmed Monday through to Saturday, then Sunday is an “off day”. This gives the cast and crew a chance to rest after working for such long days during the week.

These days will be spent in their hotel rooms, and cast members are allowed to go out for walks, if they have a member of the cast to accompany them. Nick Mohammed, who appeared on The Celebrity Traitors season one, told The Times he would go for walks with security, which “looked pretty weird, like you’re on day release”. 

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