Jamie Dornan Interview: The Tourist | Screen Rant
In HBO Max's The Tourist, Jamie Dornan stars as The Man, who is searching to find his identity while in heart of the Australian Outback. The show is a gripping drama that promises to be a compelling experience for audiences.
Dornan spoke to Screen Rant about his experience on The Tourist, shooting in the Australian Outback, and much more.
Screen Rant: I'm loving the show. I love your character. What sets The Tourist apart from anything that you've done before?
Jamie Dornan: Kind of everything, almost, because it's such a mash-up of so many different worlds and genres and tones. I've jumped into comedy a little bit in the last couple of years but never mixed it with quite intense drama, and that was what I felt was so fascinating about these scripts. It was like this merging of these worlds, and they hop. I don't even think it's seamless, but I mean that in a good way. It's like in a jarring way. They hop from something really extreme and dramatic to something really kooky and a bit off-kilter and funny, and I loved that. That was so refreshing to read that. I felt like it kept me, and would hopefully keep an audience, constantly guessing. I think, particularly, those first couple of episodes before the tone settles in, you're just going, "What is this? There's so many odd things happening." It was exciting for me. Really, truly – this is the sort of thing you say about scripts when you're doing press, it's like, "Oh it's like nothing I've read before." – But The Tourist was really like nothing I've ever read, or since. It's definitely its own kind of mad, unique world.
You got to shoot this in the Australian Outback. What were the best and worst things about shooting out there?
Jamie Dornan: I think it's good for your mind to have that much space around, these massive big open skies, nothing going on. No light pollution of any kind. No pollution, basically, of any kind. That's why people are drawn to those places, often. Drawn for a weekend or week is one thing, being there all the time is another. I'd probably lose my mind. So that was the best thing. Those drives into work in the morning, sometimes we were on locations that were 45 minutes, an hour in the car, just through the Australian Outback as the sun came up or before the sun came up. It was just crazy good for your mind I think. But then the Yin to that Yang is, there's not a lot happening. We're in these tiny little towns where there's like one pub, one place to eat, but very bonding as a result of that. I think overall we did more in-studio in Adelaide, which is a pretty bustling, cool city than we did in the actual Outback, which is four hours outside of Adelaide in the car. I had my family with me, so they came to the Outback a couple of times. But for the most part, I was with them in Adelaide, so that was probably the best.
When I'm in those small towns, though. I'm like, "I'm gonna be a regular at this pub and they're gonna love me by the end of this."
Jamie Dornan: We didn't have a choice [laughs]. We were definitely regulars in that pub.
If you met someone who had amnesia, what's an obscure YouTube video that you would show them?
Jamie Dornan: Did you ever see a Grape Lady? [Laughs] It's really bad because it's just essentially someone having a bad fall and finding it funny. But there's a woman crushing grapes with her feet, the wine-making process, and then she gets so excited and does this little shuffle in the grapes, and then she has this really kind of awful fall.
Oh! Is this the newscast thing?
Jamie Dornan: Exactly. If someone had amnesia and didn't even know the process of what is happening. Like, "Why are these women traveling around in a thing of grapes?" [Laughs] Even the idea that wine is made with grapes. Just that whole, I think if you didn't know what was going on, that would be an interesting world to take put yourself into.
I would show them Edgar's Prayer with no context.
Jamie Dornan: Oh, god. Wow. Well, yeah. [Laughs] If that was your first context of the world, you would have a pretty skewed idea of how people behave.
The Tourist is now streaming on HBO Max.