Jamie Dornan has revealed the untimely run-ins he had with native Australian creatures while shooting The Tourist in the outback.
The six-part thriller written by acclaimed writing brothers Harry and Jack Williams follows Jamie, starring as “The Man”, as he searches for his identity while killers are on his trail.
The Irish hunk, who shot to fame for his portrayal of Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades franchise, came across a number of Aussie animals while shooting The Tourist.
“We found a snake in the car one day when we were filming in the outback. And you know, there’s a load of kangaroos and they’re not the brightest of creatures… although they’re very beautiful,” he told Sarah McGilvray on Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa.
“I don’t want to get cancelled in Australia, but you just have to drive through the outback and look at the side of the road and see it littered with these animals. I don’t know how they don’t learn to stay inland the wee bit from the road.”
The interview comes three days after Jamie revealed he was stuck in hotel quarantine in Australia while his beloved father, Jim, had died from COVID in hospital.
The 39-year-old had four days of his quarantine remaining when his father died in Dubai last March, leaving the actor unable to travel to be by his bedside.
“His death was pretty brutal. I was in quarantine in a hotel in Sydney with my whole family, with still three days of quarantine [left on] the day he died, not able to leave this f–king room,” Jamie told The Sun.
“It’s been a brutal time for lots of reasons and for lots of people. We’re all just trying to ride it out and come out the other side – and hope we’ve got our heads intact.”
Jamie previously opened up to TV WEEK about his latest project, The Tourist, saying it was “very challenging” to film.
“There were a lot of stunts and I tried to do as much as I could. I got thrown around quite a lot. It was scorching hot when we got there and filmed that opening scene and then, towards the end of the entire shoot, the weather changed and we were freezing cold!” he said.
On top of that, because of deadly brown snakes, the cast and crew were advised to have bands around the bottoms of their pants when not on camera to prevent them from slithering up.
“You’re dealing with the isolation of being in the outback, staying in a whitewashed town with not much to do but play pool at the pub,” Jamie said.
The Fall star also opened up about receiving the script prior to production beginning last year.
“Usually, when you read the opening pages of a script you get a sense of who this person is, the sort of life they have, the family they have, the job they have and what their intentions are,” he said.
“But with this, there was none of that. It was exciting to have the story revealed to me, bit by bit, in the same way as it will to the audience.
“‘The Man’, as we call him, has an instant affinity with probationary police officer Helen Chambers [Danielle Macdonald] and cafe waitress Luci [Shalom Brune-Franklin], who he feels may be able to help him find answers.”
This wasn’t the actor’s first visit to Australia, although he admits he didn’t get to see that much first time around, as most of his time was spent drinking.
“I went to Sydney for New Year’s Eve 2008 going into 2009. Two really good mates in Belfast [Jamie’s home town in Northern Ireland] moved there after uni. So we just went on the lash for nine days, slept on a mate’s floor and didn’t really see that much,” he said.