Jamie Dornan recently confessed to making out with a horse and I believe the world should still be talking about this. If the task falls to me, then so be it. He shared this sordid tidbit while on The Graham Norton Show in December, where he was promoting the second season of his BBC thriller The Tourist. In the series, Dornan plays an amnesiac piecing his life back together, and is horrified to discover he works for an international crime syndicate. No word on whether any of the victims were horses. Picking up again with press, The Independent ran a profile on Dornan over the weekend. Yes, there was the seemingly requisite portion dedicated to Fifty Shades of Grey talk, but the rest of the interview showed him to be a goofball with some endearing insecurities. And the mouth of a sailor.

Words of encouragement: Jamie Dornan, Kenneth Branagh once said, is far too interesting a person for someone so pretty. That was the gist, anyway. “He surprises you as being something more intriguing than his exceptional good looks,” were his exact words, right around the time he directed him in Belfast, the 2021 Oscar winner that helped transition Dornan out of his vaguely unhelpful status as “the guy from Fifty Shades of Grey”. When I repeat Branagh’s words back to Dornan over Diet Cokes at a publicity office in central London, I’m taken aback by the sincerity of his response. Dornan doesn’t blush or cringe. He doesn’t scold me for embarrassing him. He just sits there, touched, as if it’s the nicest sentiment he’s heard in years. “Oh man, I f***ing need to hear s*** like that,” he tells me, rubbing gently at his salt-and-pepper beard. “Sometimes I’m just riddled with self-f***ing-hatred and doubt. It’s very, very nice to hear that.”

The Fall was a breakout for him: “All I’d ever get to audition for was, you know, ‘the count who comes in on a f***ing horse and ravages the woman,’” he remembers of his days trying to make it as an actor. “I’d come from modelling, so I thought those were the only types of roles I was going to do.” But then he tried out for The Fall, and got the part, and people liked him a lot in it… Dornan found the whole thing personally gratifying. “I’d never had an opportunity to show that darker side of myself — and when you’re told that you do it well, it really makes an impact.” He fiddles with the ring on his cola can, seeming quite touched again.

He loves the writing on The Tourist: “The way those guys write,” Dornan says, “I’m always asking, ‘What the f*** is happening now? Who’s this f*** lunatic you’ve brought in?’” The Tourist stems from screenwriting brothers Harry and Jack Williams, who most recently scripted the Coen Brothers-esque dark comedy Boat Story for the BBC. They’ve been accused of sometimes veering too heavily into the absurd, and while Dornan says he understands those complaints, he also loves it whenever a script takes a sharp left turn. “I know some people didn’t like Boat Story, but I loved that it was just so f***ing mad! I’d far rather watch that than some formulaic mystery f***ing drama with…” He seems to spot my Dictaphone and clams up. “I was about to start naming actors, but I can’t do that with that thing there. But anything weird as f*** and non-linear — is that not just really interesting?”

On his role in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar: “That film got f***ing nailed by Covid, but it’s got such a cult following now,” he says. “I’m probably closer to that character than any other character I’ve played — if a bit smarter. I think at my core I’m just really f***ing silly, you know?” He remembers his family flying out to see him during filming — and their visit happened to fall on the day when he was shooting his musical number. “I’m on this beached jetski, the wind machine is in my hair, and I’m lip-syncing and doing all this stupid s***,” he says. “They call ‘cut’ and Millie [his wife] walks over to me and says, ‘Do they know you’re just playing yourself?’ And I’m like, ‘Shuddup, they’re not supposed to know that.’”

[From The Independent]

This guy needs to do some more comedy, stat! Seriously, put the brakes on the brooding killers and let his silly flag fly. I know a lot of actors love to prove their dramatic chops with darker roles, but even Ryan Gosling found his way to the light side this year. Not to say that The Tourist doesn’t sound interesting, because it does, and according to reviews it has definite elements of black comedy. And I really enjoyed him in The Fall. But now it’s time to have some quirky daffy zany fun. Someone connect him with a powerhouse woman, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, or Tina Fey, or Greta Gerwig!! And of course, there must be horses. In fact, make it a full circle moment and have him enter the film as “the count who comes in on a f–king horse.”

Photos credit: Netflix and PA Images/INSTARimages