Jamie Dornan Lights up Social Media With ‘Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar’ Performance

A decade after the success of Bridesmaids, writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo have teamed up again for a hilarious and silly, bright comedy about two friends who embark on the adventure of a lifetime after leaving their small Midwestern town for the first time. Unabashedly silly with a mix of wacky visuals and exuberant laughs, the movie has been the talk of social media this past weekend after its premiere on Friday. Starring Mumolo and Wiig as the leads, Barb and Star, the film has received a 79% freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes, reaffirming that the writing duo is as funny as ever in this somewhat Jackson Pollock of comedies, beaming with abstract delights and candy-colored energy.

But while the film has become a hit among viewers alongside its all-star cast of funny stars, Jamie Dornan has won social media’s heart and surprised many with his stellar musical chops. The often serious star known best for the TV series The Fall and blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, gets his own emotional singing number, dubbed his Whitney Houston “I Have Nothing” moment via Variety with the song, “Edgar’s Prayer.”

In an interview with the publication, Wiig revealed Dornan “brought it,” admitting she wished she had the recording of him in the sound booth singing his face off. “I wish we had that. He can really sing, but that was a treat for all of us,” she said.

Scroll through to see how social media is responding to the musical and dance numbers — and then watch Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar on-demand currently streaming at Amazon and all digital retailers.

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In an interview with the director, Josh Greenbaum for Slate, he reveals details of working with Dornan on the musical number and how much of it really required a double. “It’s almost all him other than when we make it obvious that it’s not,” he said. 

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Greenbaum continued: “All the singing is him. He’s got a pretty incredible voice, which I think when we wrote it and cast it, I didn’t even know. I figured, ‘Oh, we’ll probably have someone else sing.’ I didn’t know he had a wonderful voice. But we started talking more and more, and he was in a band in high school, and it was like, ‘Oh, he can really pull this off.’”

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“And then the dancing, obviously he’s fully committed. There are a couple of sequences, like when he’s spinning like a baby ballerina and digging himself into the sand, that are obviously doubled,” Greenbaum said to Slate. 

 

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The director continued of Dornan: “Again, I hope it comes across as clear that part of the joke is it’s clearly not him, but if so, I’m sorry for ruining it for people that’s not him. He’s clearly doing the bulk of the funny tumbling and jumping. But when there’s beautiful, full-split ballet moves, I hate to tell the world, but that’s actually not Jamie.”

 

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Greenbaum opens up about the moment when Dornan rips his shirt off, admitting the 38-year-old is “just that strong.” In a real behind-the-scenes story, he further states to Slate “he did do a take or two where we didn’t rip it because I was like, ‘Look, it might be funny if you’re struggling to rip it,’ because I think we’ve all seen the tear-off.” 

However, in Barb and Star, since his character Edgar was already having such a hard time, maybe it made sense that his shirt wouldn’t rip off right according to the director. “Nothing’s going his way. So I think he actually did do a take or two where he just ripped it himself, and that is actually I believe what’s in the movie.”

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“But we did other takes where you pre-score [the shirt], and you just put a little rip at the bottom or the top, and it helps out a little bit. Look, he’s a very strong man if you didn’t know that and can’t tell from his body. I have full faith that if he ever had to rip his shirt off without any help, he can do it,” he told Slate, later adding how the actor is actually “very, very funny” and “gets” the kind of humor illustrated in the movie.

“When we were shooting the movie, I remember his wife came up to me and told me: ‘This is really Jamie. This is really what he loves to do and what he, early on in his acting career, wanted to do.’ And then of course he was cast in one of his earliest roles [in The Fall] as a serial killer, and then it goes from there. But he did such an incredible job.”

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is currently streaming at Amazon and all digital retailers. For more on Jamie Dornan and all your favorite stars, keep it locked to PopCulture.com for the latest in movie and entertainment news.