Editor’s Note: Spoilers are ahead for Season 2 of ‘The Tourist.’

The Big Picture

Season 2 of
The Tourist
hints at a potential Season 3, leaving an open-ended finale with room for more.
Jamie Dornan pushed his limits in Season 2 with intense physical stunt work, eager for potential future seasons.
Dornan praises co-star Danielle Macdonald and hints at his desire for a
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
sequel while sharing hopes to work with Cillian Murphy again.

After earning critical acclaim and strong ratings overseas with its BBC debut in 2022, The Tourist finally made its way to Netflix in February and the twisty action-thriller has audiences absolutely engrossed. With Season 2 of the Harry and Jack Williams production finally here and its shocking finale dropping major hints about a potential Season 3, series star Jamie Dornan tells Collider in an exclusive interview that there could very well be more to come, depending on what Netflix thinks. Teasing how it’s a “very open-ended” Season 2 finale with a possibility for another chapter, the neo-Western can go just about anywhere — or it can just be left to that. After all, Season 1’s amnesia-filled romp across the Australian outback was meant to be just a limited series.

In an exclusive sit-down with the star in support of The Tourist Season 2 now streaming on Netflix in the U.S., Dornan talks about what he thought of that Season 3 tease in the show’s final moments, what it was like working with his co-star, Danielle Macdonald, and how the series pushed him to his limits with all that physical stunt work. Moreover, the Irish actor gets candid about what’s next for him (including how he’s trying to find something to do with longtime friend and buddy, Cillian Murphy) and his hopes for a Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar sequel with Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo.

The Tourist When a man wakes up in the Australian outback with no memory, he must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him.Release Date March 3, 2022 Creator Harry Williams, Jack Williams Main Genre Drama Seasons 2

‘The Tourist’ Season 2 Pushed Jamie Dornan to the Limits
Image via Netflix

As Season 1 of The Tourist set the bar for its chilling mystery and snappy action, Season 2 of the Harry and Jack Williams series elevated its usually taut fight sequences with the help of Ireland’s lush and hilly landscapes. With striking cinematography that sends our protagonist, Elliot Stanley on a deeper journey to discover who he is with the help of his girlfriend Helen (Danielle Macdonald), it was a physically demanding role for Jamie Dornan that truly tested his limits. While he admits to Collider it was “a good time,” he also reveals the biggest challenge when it came to stunts was something we can all relate to.

“I’m older,” Dornan laughed with Collider. “Every job I do, I’m older, but I’m also stubborn as shit. I really want to push myself and test myself physically. [But] maybe one day I’ll change and go, ‘You know what guys, we’ve got a whole stunt team here, that guy — they shaved his head, he looks exactly like me from a distance. Let’s just throw him in the ringer.’ But I’m not there yet.”

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Dornan adds he still very much likes to do his stunts and enjoys the physical aspect, especially knowing it’s a big part of his character’s past. “I’m still very much like, ‘No, I want to do it,’” he said, adding how he is not “very good” at being a still person. “For me, that exertion at work, I’m really grateful for it and I really want to do it, and often it means that I’ve got that out of my system for the day, and it means I can just go back and eat instead of going back and going to the gym and then eating,” he laughed. “I love that side of it [and] I’m happy to throw myself around whilst I feel like I can.”

As for comparing his action work to last season, Dornan knows there was a lot more this time around that left him feeling the burn. But it was nicely balanced with the show’s more humorous aspects, like the scene where Elliot is running from his assailants up a hill and then tumbles down. “As much as he’s been chased by these guys who seem pretty unsavory, you know, it’s a bit ridiculous,” he said. “Also the whole sequence of events, so it looked like there was a lot of scale for having fun with that, so I was like, I want to be the one having fun with it.”

Jamie Dornan Praises His ‘Tourist’ Season 2 Co-Star Danielle Macdonald
Image via Netflix

With twists and very wild turns at every corner, The Tourist has kept audiences guessing throughout its first two seasons. But subtract the thrills and chills, and there’s a rather tender love story between the show’s two main characters, Elliot Stanley and Helen Chambers, played respectively by Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald. While Dornan tells Collider that he loves the “exploration” of Elliot and Helen’s new dynamic as a couple, he says there was a sincere selfishness that involved his decision in wanting to continue telling the story of The Tourist — and it had everything to do with his co-star.

“I thought the only way this is going to work, and if we do the second series, is if we put these guys together,” Dornan said. “I love being with Danny and spending close proximity with her. She’s so good, such a brilliant actor, and we just have the best time together. So, I was like, this is going to be great and I do genuinely think that the audience wants that — or wanted that, no matter how sort of strange the foundations of their relationship are.” Adding how there is a sincere connection between Elliot and Helen, Dornan says even with the complications along the way these characters face and Helen finding out about Elliot’s past, there is a strong, natural need for them to “end up happy together.” He adds how Season 2 offered the two actors a “really great opportunity” to explore that.

With the two sharing a sparkling chemistry and dynamic that elevates the series’ themes and appeal, Dornan adds Macdonald as a person and her character, Helen, is just inherently good. “There couldn’t be anyone else who could have played Helen other than Danielle,” he said of the first time they read together during the early pandemic. Having seen her work and praising her performance in Dumplin’, Dornan said he “knew she was brilliant, but [her audition] was just so perfect.” Adding how she’s “just such a good soul,” he says there’s “so much truth with her” as a person and as Helen, looking out for Elliot. “I always just felt like everything Danny says is like truth to me and all Elliot is looking for is truth because he doesn’t have a fucking clue who he is or why he’s finding himself at this point and who to trust,” he said. “Here we have this person in the middle who is showing him love and trust and truth, so he’s clinging to that. That’s one of the reasons why you want them to work so much.”

Will ‘The Tourist’ Season 3 Happen?

As Season 2 cruises through the backroads of Ireland to wrap up some of the bigger questions in its finale, like how Elliot is now Eugene Cassidy and what the suitcase his mother Niamh Cassidy (Olwen Fouéré) buried decades ago held, audiences get a fiery shock and awe ending in its final five minutes. After facing several dreadful events across the show’s six episodes, the couple finally leaves behind their dubious past. That is until, six months later, they receive a manila envelope at their comfortable Amsterdam apartment containing a document titled “The Life and Times of Eugene Cassidy,” which forces them to confront their past once again. Though the pair decide not to look into the files and proceed to toss them into the Dutch oven, the audience is very aware there is more to the story.

As the files burn up, we discover a document that states Eugene Cassidy has been a “special agent” as far back as 2005 and is on a “general assignment” for the “Sentinel” bureau, which throws a wrench into everything we thought we knew about his character. It’s a reveal Dornan tells Collider he is excited for fans to watch. “[That ending] was very blatantly and purposely open-ended,” Dornan said. “Even more so than the first series, which you could have very easily gone, ‘All right, that’s it.’ But the door opened just enough to be, like, ‘All right, there could be more life in this if he survives.’ But with this one, yeah, it’s very open.”

Dornan admits the show leaves a couple of “big Easter eggy-things” for the audience that Elliot and Helen are not privy to. As for what that means for a potential Season 3, there are “lots of conversations” happening between him, “other people way more powerful than” Dornan and the showrunners. “It’s cool now, and it will take on its own new life because Netflix has given this a new life in the States, so that could inform a lot of it in terms of how well that does for them and the want for it. So, we’ll see what happens.”

Jamie Dornan Offers ‘Barb & Star’ Sequel Update
Image via Lionsgate

Following the massive success of the Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo comedy Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, audiences have been itching for more of the wildly hilarious duo. Scoring a certified fresh score of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, the bright, colorful, and unabashedly silly comedy has all the right ingredients for a sequel. But as conversations have stalled a bit since the film’s pandemic release in 2021, The Tourist’s Jamie Dornan, who starred as Edgar Pagét in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar admits to Collider it’s time to start a petition and get talks going again.

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“If you’re up for it, if you wouldn’t mind starting like a petition online and gather some heat, gather some names,” Dornan said. “I have had a couple of conversations with Kristen [Wiig] and Annie [Mumolo] about like, doing more, you know, slightly unfortunate, like COVID-y timing with the release of that. And I do think it’s found a really lovely audience who really genuinely love it. But because of the way it came out and the timing of it and not getting a cinematic release because of the cinemas being closed — it was just tough. I feel like more people should know it and if more people had seen it in the right way at the time, then these would probably be easier conversations to be having about doing more because you could do endless.”

Dornan adds how Barb, Star, and Edgar could go anywhere when it comes to the film’s direction. “I would go anywhere with those guys, you know,” he laughed. “I’ll keep knocking on the door and see if, you know, it would be a great thing. I’d love it.”

Jamie Dornan Wants to Work With Cillian Murphy Again

In the meantime, Jamie Dornan has plenty of work ahead. After The Tourist, the actor who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by Queen’s University for his contribution to the arts and “putting Northern Ireland on the map” is getting ready for an unannounced project he will be filming in a few weeks. “That’s really exciting and the longest job I would have ever done, so that will be interesting,” he told Collider. “I’ve got loads going on, that is all very varied, I would say. Very exciting, and I think at least one of them will be announced in the next few weeks.”

As for collaborating with others, Dornan reveals he and his former Anthropoid co-star and longtime friend Cillian Murphy are “trying to find” something to do together again. Adding how filming the World War II drama was a “good time” had by both, Dornan jokes that the Oscar-nominated actor following last year’s blockbuster epic Oppenheimer “needs a break” from the whirlwind adventure that the Christopher Nolan movie has brought along. “He’s having a tough time of it at the moment. You know, it’s been rough,” Dornan joked. “So I’ll try to throw him a bone at some point and see if I can get him some work.”

The Tourist Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Netflix.

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