‘The Tourist’ Star Jamie Dornan Talks ‘Craziness’ of Mysterious Role on HBO Max Series (Exclusive)

Following an initial run overseas to rave reviews and acclaim from viewers and critics alike, HBO Max’s newest thriller The Tourist is flying off to a stellar start ahead of its North American premiere on Thursday, March 3. The Coen brothers-reminiscent dark comedy starring Jamie Dornan sees the actor’s mysterious character known simply as “The Man” waking up with amnesia after being driven off the road in the glowing heart of the Australian outback. Trying his best to piece together his identity with just a few clues left on him, The Man’s past catches up with him most aggressively for a role Dornan tells PopCulture.com exclusively was layered with some very detailed complexity.

“So much of the craziness of [the role] was on there, obviously, on the page. I loved how brave it was, merging genres together. The challenge of playing someone who inhabits that world, has all of those different genres, but is also discovering everything as he goes along was massive and massively alluring for me,” Dornan told PopCulture. “In the second series of The Fall, my character has amnesia, but we don’t know if he’s telling the truth or if he’s manipulating the situation. But there’s a purity to this and truthfulness to [The Man’s] memory loss that was really exciting.”

The Golden Globe nominee adds how his role “sort of turned the rule book” on its head in terms of his own preparation. “That was exciting to me to take on a different challenge like that. and I’m always up for changing people’s perception or for doing something different to what I’ve just done,” he said. “This was just a million miles away from , which had just finished, and I was like, ‘Sign me up.’”

It wasn’t just his amnesia-stricken character evading bad guys that attracted Dornan to The Tourist. The actor admits the show’s story balancing dark tones and unique humor of anecdotal and farcical notes reminiscent of Joel and Ethan Coen classics like Fargo and No Country for Old Men was a big reason he wanted to be involved.

“I love all those references, and they were all talked about. The Coen brothers was mentioned all the time as a tonal space to live in. I just, I loved the ambition of it,” he said. “I had so much trust in Chris Sweeney, our director of the first block. He did a show called Back to Life that I really urge you to watch if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s incredible. Jack and Harry Williams, who wrote [The Tourist], produced that. So, I knew the tone of it could be handled really well because it jumps from drama to comedy in a big way.”

Dornan adds he loves how The Tourist is also “constantly messing around with the audience” when it comes to the shock and awe moments. “[Just] how comfortable they were and what they thought they knew — I thought that was really interesting,” he said. “I think you truly never get a grasp of it. Maybe even when it finishes you don’t truly have a grasp on it. I thought that was really cool, and I thought, ‘This is going to hopefully entertain people for six hours.’”

The Tourist premieres on HBO Max on Thursday, March 3. For more on The Tourist and Jamie Dornan, stick to PopCulture.com for the latest.