Early on in the BBC thriller The Tourist, Jamie Dornan’s titular character — who simply goes by The Man — is seen sing-along driving (car-aoke-ing?) to Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis’ Eyes’ in the Australian outback before he gets run off the road by a truck driver. He survives the accident but has no memories of who he is, why he’s being targeted, and how on Earth did an Irish dude end up in Mad Max’s backyard?

As the six-part limited series unfolds, The Man gradually discovers new information of himself: Is he the good guy or the bad guy in this story?

For Dornan, 39, The Tourist, marks the fourth back-to-back role where he gets to show off his vocal chops on-screen; he previously did it in Wild Mountain Thyme, a rom-com which he starred alongside Emily Blunt, the Kristen Wiig-led Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, and Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical family drama Belfast.

“It just so happens that I’ve done four projects in a row where I sang,” says the Irish actor who once was in the folk band Sons of Jim in the noughties. “It’s kind of crazy.”

Equally crazy is the buzz surrounding Belfast, which is tipped to a big Oscar contender when the nominations are announced on Tuesday (Feb 8, Singapore time 9.18pm), with a possible Best Supporting Actor nod for Dornan.

“I keep saying that it’s nice to be in those conversations than not being in those conversations,” says Dornan. “I think low expectations are the way to ride these things out.” Dornan has already received countless accolades for his role as Pa, including nominations from the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes.

Good thing the father of three girls has The Tourist, now out on BBC First and BBC Player, to distract him from the Academy Award madness. Speaking to 8days.sg via Zoom from Los Angeles, Dornan shares more behind-the-scenes stories from the making of that series.

1. He shot The Tourist after Belfast wrapped.

It wasn’t a conscious decision for Dornan to follow up Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical drama with a TV series. “I am just drawn to anything that can come in any kind of medium,” says Dornan, whose last TV venture was the 2018 BBC mini-series Death and Nightingales. And The Tourist script was too good to refuse: “I thought it was insane in the best way — and it felt like a million miles from Belfast, and I am all for switching it up and not trying to do the same thing following each other.” There’s another reason he boarded the project: the Australian authorities, particularly in Adelaide, where The Tourist was filmed, had the COVID-19 pandemic under control. “At that stage [circa April 2021] Australia was a safe haven compared to the UK,” says Dornan who brought his wife and three kids Down Under. “It was a very compelling place to go just when we were about to enter our fourth lockdown in the UK.” So, in a way, the Dornans became tourists themselves. “But we had an easier ride than The Man,” he chuckles.

Family ties: Dornan with his ‘Belfast’ family — (from left) Ciarán Hinds, Jude Hill and Judi Dench. The buzzy drama is loosely inspired by director Kenneth Bragnagh’s own childhood growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1960s.

2. He was drawn to The Man’s ambiguity.

One of the thrills of playing an amnesiac is that he doesn’t know if he’s the hero or villain in his own narrative. “I think you have to play every beat with total sincerity to what’s happening there,” says Dornan. “I don’t like watching performances where I think the actor is playing an undercurrent. I think if the writing is good enough and the editing is good enough, we should get a sense of that anyway. I think it’s always best to play each side totally pure. And I find that more impactful and shocking when you do see a turn. You don’t really have a great gauge until later in the series of who The Man truly is. He doesn’t know either, so the audience is finding out as he finds out.”The Tourist - Jamie Dornan solo3. He got to exercise his funny muscles.

Even though The Tourist is a crime thriller, it has a few darkly humorous moments involving Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$), who plays a trainee cop who becomes both The Man’s buddy and hostage. “Danielle is just an unbelievable talent — she comes ready to have fun,” Dornan enthuses. “She plays that sort of slightly-out-of-her-depth, bewildered-by-what’s-in-front-of-her cop really beautifully. I think people don’t see what’s coming — it’s this ever-evolving relationship they have on-screen. I love it on the page but Danielle just elevated it with her performance. Another comedic highlight: The Man tripping on acid. “I like getting to the point where you are convincing yourself you are in that state. I had a lot of fun with that. I was lucky with all the actors in those scenes who helped elevate what I was going through.”The Tourist - Jamie Dornan & Danielle Macdonald4. We need to talk about his face fuzz.

In The Tourist, Dornan spots this massive beard. Did he grow it specifically for the series to make The Man more mysterious as if he has something to hide? Not exactly. After he was done with Belfast — where he was totally clean-shaven — Dornan decided to grow a beard. “When I met the [showrunners of The Tourist], they said, ‘Would you keep that [beard] going?’” he recalls. “Then it just became this mask. Now, when I see pictures of it, I had forgotten it was that big, especially when we were shooting in the Outback. It was filled with sand, and also, my beard was going a little grey. So it was this grey, dusty nest on my face for most of that job. I kinda miss it at the moment.”

Fifty shades of funny: Dornan with Kristen Wiig in ‘Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar’. The goofy story — about two friends (Wiig and Annie Mumolo) leaving their small Midwestern town for the first time for a coastal vacay is so bizarre that “you have to watch it to believe it,” says Dornan.

5. All roads lead back to Vista Del Mar.

The Tourist marks the fourth consecutive time Dornan got to showcase his singing prowess on-screen; he did before in Belfast, rom-com Wild Mountain Thyme, and buddy-com Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. The latter, starring Bridesmaids alums Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, also happens to be Dornan’s first comedy. Working on that movie — which was quietly released in the US online without much fanfare last year — gave him to confidence to sing and do more funny stuff. “I think the more you do it, the easier it becomes,” he says. “If you survive ‘Edgar’s Prayer’ [the musical segment from Barb and Star], you are ready for anything.” That said, Dornan assures us that he won’t be belting out any tunes in his next gig: Heart of Stone, a Netflix spy thriller co-starring Gal Gadot. “We are all going to get a break…which is good.”

The Tourist is now available on BBC First (StarHub Ch 502, Singtel TV Ch 308) & BBC Player. Belfast is now in cinemas. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is on iTunes and Wild Mountain Thyme is streaming on HBO Go.

Photos: BBC Studios, TPG News/Click Photos