Share and Follow
The Tourist is finding a new home on Netflix and Jamie Dornan couldn’t be more pleased.
The Irish actor’s breakthrough series The Fall – which he credits for changing his life – was first made available in the United States through the streaming service after its BBC release. He later returned for the Netflix Original movies The Siege of Jadotville and Heart of Stone.
Now, the streaming service is giving The Tourist a second life after the first season was removed from Max, a previous co-producer, amid production for Season 2.
“Netflix has quite a good history of reviving shows that didn’t, for whatever reason, land in the States the first time around,” Dornan tells Decider during an interview.
“[The Tourist] was a big hit in the UK. It was the most-watched drama of 2022. It was strange to have such fanfare over there and then not have many people knowing about it in the States.”
Upon the first season’s re-release on Netflix on Jan. 1 , 2024, the show immediately climbed the charts and has spent four weeks on the Global Top 10 list for TV.
“Netflix ended up taking it on and it’s great,” Dornan says, “It’s a great new home for [the show], and it’s found a really big audience here, which is fantastic. I’ve had such a nice history with Netflix, so it feels like the right place for it to be.”
Dornan teases the continuation of his relationship with Netflix, vaguely sharing, “There’s a couple of things that are maybe in my future that are Netflix-y.”
The Tourist Season 2 began airing in the UK in January 2024 and was met with critical acclaim. Many praised Dornan’s performance and the show’s ability to transcend genres. The Standard wrote, “The show is tense, brutal and often laugh-out-loud funny.”
The first season follows Dornan as a car crash victim who wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and feels an urgency to recover his memory after being made aware of dangerous people seemingly trying to kill him. The core focus of the season is on the man’s attempt to learn more about himself and the logistics of his situation, dealing with lawyers, doctors, and whatnot, rather than the people chasing after him.
By the end of the season, the man learns that his name is Elliot and he’s embroiled in a major drug trafficking ring. Elliot also makes amends with Helen, portrayed by Danielle Macdonald, a police officer whom he kidnaps while on the run but later grows close to.
“That character is always in some crazy state of affairs. It’s never an easy ride for him,” Dornan says about Elliot. “There’s always some madness going on that he’s having to deal with or that’s being revealed to him, or some revelation of his past. It’s really dark and murky. He’s always getting kidnapped or someone else is getting kidnapped, or he’s getting beaten up or someone he loves is getting taken. There’s so much going on.”
Through it all, the writers and executive producers Jack and Harry Williams sprinkle in moments of comedic relief. “[Elliot] also finds himself in these ridiculous situations. What I like about that is the stakes are really high and it does sometimes feel like life-or-death, but [the writers] punctuate that with crazy humor,” says Dornan. “Jack and Harry Williams, who wrote the show, are really clever. You can’t allow yourself to get too caught up in the weight of the heavy stuff because you know that any second there’s gonna be some silly gag… The Tourist is a lot of different ingredients into the crazy pot.”
The first episode of the new season plays into that as it finds Elliot getting kidnapped and placed into a sadistic Saw-like situation that he’s not buying into. When told to cut off his legs, Elliot shakes his head in disbelief and says, “Fucking what? You want me to cut off my legs? Or what? Like what if I don’t want to hack off both of my legs just because you told me to?”
When asked about the homage, Dornan admits that he’s not a fan of horror. “I’ve maybe seen one Saw movie. I sort of enjoyed it. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not the audience for it?” He continues to say that he doesn’t think he’ll ever star in a horror-specific project. “I like dipping into that, but I’m not sure I’d want to do an entire movie of that, like crawling around in the dirt. My kids could never watch any of that stuff. It’d be pretty harrowing for them to see me in those situations. Not that that is the only reason… clearly not with some of the stuff I’ve done.”
Dornan adds, “You wouldn’t see the light. Those movies are all indoors, like in a basement.”
Speaking of location, the new season of The Tourist takes place in Ireland, a decision that was prompted by Dornan after he temporarily relocated his family to Australia to film the first season. The actor describes meeting up with the Williams brothers for a meal and them slipping him a script for the first episode of Season 2, despite the first season meaning to be a one-off. “I hadn’t said yes or anything. I was like, ‘I’m not even sure I want to do more,’ and if we’re doing more, it would have to be quite different. I can’t bring my family back like that again. It’s too big an undertaking. It’s a lot for the family,” Dornan recalls.
But Dornan found that he was aligned with the writers. “The show is called The Tourist. There’s a lot of scope for it to move on from the original destination. So, I gently suggested the idea of Ireland and luckily, Jack and Harry had that in their mind too,” Dornan says. “I read the first script and I was like, ‘Oh, right. I’m on board.’ I said ‘yes’ after reading that script.”
In addition to returning to play Elliot in the second season, Doran newly took on the role of executive producer. Doing so didn’t change his day-to-day schedule much, but he found himself more involved during pre-production, and giving input on casting and directors.
“I’m starting to do a bit more of that now. It’s definitely something I’d like to put more energy into in the future. It seems to be a bit of a thing. If you’re the lead in something and you’ve got a certain standing in the industry, you end up being an executive producer. Some are more active than others in terms of what they actually contribute, I probably fell somewhere in the middle,” Dornan says. “For the next couple of things I’m doing, I’m in that role again. I’m not allowed to talk about it, but I start filming really soon and I’m definitely more active than I was in the second season of The Tourist.”
The Tourist Season 2 dives into the developing relationship between Elliot and Helen, which Dornan says there was a demand for at the end of the first season. Gushing over his costar, Dornan shares, “[Danielle] and I have really good chemistry with each other in real life. I love her. I love being around her and I felt that we could portray on screen something that was really believable for people. We wanted that and Jack and Harry wanted that, and we got a sense that the audience wanted that to be the beginning of the second season.”
On the budding romance, Dornan says, “It felt really easy and eager. There’s this trust in their relationship, and it’s already so precarious because of what she’s found out about him and how much of that she chooses to believe. Then they go to Ireland and it’s a huge test for their relationship because they’ve gone to find out more information and try to glean more understanding of who this guy is. Some hard truths come to light and they find themselves in very difficult situations… Hopefully, it’s a testament to the strength and believability of what we’re doing on screen together that makes you gun for them. I want them to be happy.”
Uncertain of the show’s future, Dornan feels that the end of the second season is “earned” and will be rewarding for the viewers, which was a challenge given the scope of his character. “[Elliot is] often trying to do the right thing and he’s very frustrated that he doesn’t have the capability to do that sometimes. But then we’re also being fed stuff that’s really bleak about him. It’s a tough ride you’re taking the audience on, because we want you to like this guy, but you’re also going to hear really bad stuff about him,” Dornan says. “Without giving away too much at the end, there’s this whole idea of: ‘How much of it was really true?”
All said, Dornan feels that Elliot and Helen “close the door” on their journey in the final scene of the second season. However, for Dornan’s career and his newfound interest in executive producing, it’s clear that new doors continue to be opened.
The Tourist Season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.
