Jamie Dornan in his musical number Barb and Star

In the world of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, if you happen to be a gentle secret agent who fought with the woman you love, there is only one reasonable way to express your feelings: running back and forth on the beach singing a powerful ballad for the seagulls. That’s exactly what Jamie Dornan does with admirable and absurd levels of commitment in the comedy Kristen Wiig – Annie Mumolo as Edgar Paget, the love interest of both women. He runs. He spins. He kicks his toes into the sand with fervor. He even rips his teal polo shirt in a fury, which “was embarrassing, because most of the time, I couldn’t even tear it,” Dornan told Vulture.

Dornan is best known for his ultra-serious and intense roles in The fall and Fifty Shades of grey, but it turns out he has a very silly side, which he embraces in this extremely silly film. In fact, if things had gone differently before these big debuts, he might have even ended up with a career in making comic sketches, since one of his first attempts at success in Los Angeles involved launching comedy blogs. With Barb and Star at VOD, Dornan talked to Vulture to discuss polo shirt tearing techniques, the turnaround ending Wild Mountain Thymeand how he can sing “as much as any stupid actor”.

I need to start with Edgar’s great song, because it is very exaggerated and delicious. How much of that was in the script?
In the script, there were only two stage direction lines saying “Edgar then presents an exciting ballad, à la uncompromised. “So I had a conversation with director Josh Greenbaum two weeks before we went to Mexico to film, and he kept talking about this huge musical number, and I said,” What the fuck is that? I don’t remember anything about a musical number. ”So I had to go back, and those two lines became a big thing. Kristen and Annie wrote the lyrics to this, and the closer I got, the bigger I realized the whole thing was. I was like, I’m going to throw myself into it as violently as possible and have fun with it. I have a very silly side that I felt I was fully capable of expressing in that song.

You spend the music running back and forth across the beach and spinning and jumping, which is very silly, but also physically impressive. [For moves like the big high jumps, they used a body double.] Was it choreographed? Did you invent it yourself?
A bit of both. At the end of the day, it was all about making things funny. Kristen and Annie were there, and Josh was there, and our producers were very funny people, and they were all like, “What’s the funniest way to do this?” The first shot, when I run across the beach doing something funny with my hands, is just them saying, “Do what feels right.” He’s going through a heartbreaking moment, so I could just push him to the max. I was just playing for two days. It was so hot that I had to change my shirt with every shot, because I was sweating a lot.

Well, speaking of shirts, how many polo shirts did you destroy for the photo where Edgar rips his shirt in half?
The most embarrassing thing is that half the time I couldn’t even tear it up! I asked the customer to cut the top to make it easier to tear, but I think they didn’t cut the bottom, so in the first shot I was very confident at first, and then I had like a second one and I was stuck in the bottom, so I I was trying to jump out in a pathetic way. But then we did two or three more shots where they cut the bottom so I could really make it work.

I saw an interview in which Kristen said that she and Annie wrote the script with a “A Jamie Dornan”– type the actor in mind for Edgar before sending it to you. How was it for you to read this script? You hadn’t done any high-profile comedy before that.
I hadn’t even participated in discreet comedies! But when I got an agent and came to LA and stuff, I was making some comedy-type connections. I was talking to Funny or Die and I was going to blog for them that I was going to write. It was there that I felt I was going before playing a serial killer psychopath in The fall. So you’re not getting any comedy calls.

I was looking forward to getting into the ring with comedy a little bit throughout my career, and I felt that there was no better place to start than with these guys. I hadn’t learned that they had this idea of ​​me in mind before making the film. We knew some of the same people, we had some mutual friends, and I think some people were nice and said I was funny. They said they watched some of me on talk shows and gave me an idea of ​​that. I said yes based on the script title. “There is a film called Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar? I’m in! “I thought it was a real place. My geography of the states is decent enough, but as far as I know, there’s a place on the Florida coast called Vista Del Mar. I was like,” You guys have been to Vista Del Mar ? ” And they said, “It is not a real place”.

As someone who makes a living writing blogs, I have to ask what his comedy blog ideas were for Funny or Die.
The first thing I wrote was a funny version about driving drunk in Los Angeles. That was before Uber existed, as in 2003, if you had a cell phone, there would be no apps and taxis in Los Angeles were ridiculous. It was a nightmare, so everyone had a drink and drove around, so I had this idea of ​​a monorail. You would put your car in it. It was so stupid! But were they half interested? I don’t think we ever published about it, but it was going in that direction. And then, you know, other things happen.

To be fair, this is basically just Elon Musk Hyperloop.
I could have discovered something! Maybe I could have made a fortune.

You sang in Barb and Star, you sang in Wild Mountain Thyme, yourself sang on Fifty Shades Freed. Are you campaigning to make a musical?
I was supposed to do a musical this year, and some things happened and I had to get out of it. I always say that I can sing as much as any other stupid actor. We can all sing a little. If it appears in a script and it is necessary to tell the story, I am totally in favor. I am not a good enough singer to make a complete musical. But I love musicals and I love musical theater. I just didn’t think about it for myself. But you never know!

Do you have a favorite musical?
I have three children under the age of 8 and, before we have children, my wife and I went to see Matilda. We were the only people who had no children. Our oldest daughter is 7 years old and on her sixth birthday, when there was no pandemic, we took her to see Matilda. I worked with Tim Minchin [in 2018’s Robin Hood] who wrote the song for that. It’s just magical! It’s the most fun thing I’ve ever had in the theater.

I loved it groundhog day the musical Tim Minchin also wrote.
I didn’t get enough love! I know! I agree.

For Barb and Star, you use your own accent like Edgar. Was that your choice? The directors? Kristen and Annie?
When I first did FaceTimed with Josh Greenbaum, I asked him, because he never mentioned anything in the script for how Edgar talks. He was the one who said, “Would you be nice to do that with your accent?” I’m from Northern Ireland and my character is called “Edgar Pagét”, so it’s so ridiculous. I’ve never met anyone with a name even close to the one I’m from. I think that just added to the absurdity of it all. I had forgotten what his last name was until Lionsgate sent me a short clip that they are going to release. I was like, “Wait, is his name Pagét?”

[Warning to readers: Skip this next question if, for some reason, you have not experienced the wild twist at the end of Wild Mountain Thyme and wish to remain unspoiled.]

In terms of fully committing to absurd ideas, in Wild Mountain Thyme his character reveals at the end of the film that he finds himself a bee. As an actor, how do you approach playing a moment like this?
You just have to make yourself believe. This scene has more than 20 pages in the kitchen with Emily, and it took us three days to shoot. So at that point, I was totally convinced it was Anthony Reilly and I thought it was a bee. I planned, but I really cried when I said that. I was in a very strange and magical place. It felt like he was releasing that information, as if he could finally breathe.

That morning, I said to John Patrick Shanley, the director: “By the way, does does he really think he’s a bee? “He was like [in a nasally American accent], “Well, everyone thinks they are something they are not”. I was like, “Do they like it, Shanley?” Shanley is a fucking genius, but he’s also a stranger. I don’t think I ever really thought I was anything other than … a guy. But he said that for sure and I thought, I will embrace this.

You also recently returned to Northern Ireland to make this film Belfast with Kenneth Branagh. It’s based on his childhood, as I understand it, but it must also have seemed familiar to you in many ways.
No matter where I live, Belfast is my home, and it always will be. I haven’t lived there for 19 years, but I’m still there all the time. So when someone like Kenneth Branagh says he’s going to make a film called Belfast, it was a dream job. We shot in strange times. They had to shoot some external stuff and some aerial stuff in Belfast, but we actually shot everything in England, which was the craziest thing, logistically, with COVID. But whenever I can work there, I go. My friend and I wrote a blocking script that is set at home that we hope to do in 2022. There is something else that I hope to do there that year too.

Well, there was also a rumor that you could appear on Derry girls, other important cultural product of Northern Ireland.
ONE Northern Ireland cultural product very important! I know that Lisa McGee, who created it, we emailed today about something actually. We talked about trying to get me to do something and it kind of never worked out with locations and when they film, and I’m always out. I like the idea of ​​appearing on that show, and I think it’s great, and that makes me very proud. When I first heard about a program called Derry girls, I thought, How is anyone outside Ireland going to understand the colloquialism of this? But it shows that it has transcended everything. You never know, but you have to align everything with the schedules. I’m definitely a big fan.