Disney Actress Turned Porn Star Maitland Ward Discusses Adult Movie Shot During Pandemic

Porn star and former “Boy Meets World” actress Maitland Ward has opened about shooting a feature-length adult film during the coronavirus pandemic.

In an essay for The Daily Beast, Ward recounted that the film production for the porn movie “Muse” started in July after months of being halted due to the pandemic. The film was anchored on the question: “Can pornography be art?”

“At first, I have to admit, I was a little skeptical. How would this all work? Would the cast and crew be able to remain safe and healthy for a span of days and weeks?” the 43-year-old adult star said.

However, Ward's doubts vanished when she witnessed the effort being put into prioritizing the safety of the cast and crew and making sure filming goes smoothly. All those involved, whether they were working that day or not, would get tested for COVID-19 on a daily basis.

“Performers were contact-traced by monitoring who they had worked with in a specified timeframe. We had to test early in the morning to make sure the results would come back early the next,” she shared, adding that no one could work on the set before test results were out.

The production team hired an emergency medical technician (EMT) and frequently checked everyone's temperature on the set. Actors were the only ones allowed to remove their masks.

“I had missed random human contact so much I think I mauled my first scene partner. He didn’t seem to mind,” she said.

Ward, who is best known for playing Rachel McGuire on the ABC/Disney Channel sitcom “Boy Meets World” and Jessica Forrester on the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful,” switched from mainstream entertainment to porn last year, making her adult film debut in “Drive.”

“I never knew there was anything in adults or porn or whatever that was this well done,” Ward told In Touch Weekly in September 2019. “I read the script, and I was like, ‘This is really, really well-written.’ This has so many themes in this and just my character is so different than anything I have portrayed before.”

Earlier this year, she also discussed why she is trying her luck in the porn industry and how lucrative her new career was compared to her time on the Disney Channel.

“Many expected my rise in the adult world, including many in the adult world itself, to be a flash in the pan,” Ward wrote in another essay for The Daily Beast. “It was a stunt. I wasn’t serious. But that’s what makes this story different: my genuine love for adult performance and for colorful cinema.”