Director Christophe Honoré was in fact preparing a stage production of Marcel Proust's The Guermantes Way with the film's actors when France went into lockdown in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the country started opening up again (before a second lockdown), the idea to make this film inspired by the situation came about, with nearly every actor playing themselves in heavily improvised scenes shot over ten afternoons and evenings at the end of July. The actual play eventually did make it to the stage starting from 30 September 2020.