Tourist on France 2: Cinematic references, Jamie Dornan’s choice … Confidence in the creator of the series

Tourist on France 2: Cinematic references, Jamie Dornan’s choice … Confidence in the creator of the series

Last Monday it aired on France 2 and was awarded the Best Series Prize a few days ago at the Monte Carlo Television Festival, the thriller The Tourist, starring Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Gray) and Daniel MacDonald (Patti Cake $). It ends this Monday evening with the broadcast of the last three episodes of the first season.

Meet a few days ago in Monte Carlo, screenwriter and producer Harry Williams, who co-created The Tourist with his brother Jack Williams, brought back to us the genesis and impact of this series in which Jamie Dornan embodies the man who was involved in a car accident. Waking up on the outskirts of Australia, with no memories. But we are sure we will try to kill him. And that his past has something in common.

AlloCiné: How did the tourist idea come about?

Harry Williams : We wanted to write an existential thriller. The central question of the series is “Who am I?”. And each character begins in search of their own discovery.

And to address this topic, hero amnesia seemed ideal. But this is a process that we have seen a lot in television and movies, be it soaps or the Jason Bourne saga. So we had to treat the amnesia differently and we wanted to go towards something more real with which the viewer would identify and also something more dark.

From there we wondered in what environment we were going to sink our completely lost hero and who actually cares who he is. And the Australian district quickly became apparent. Because it is a kind of infinite desert space where it can easily get lost, where it is quickly disoriented. And suddenly all these absurd things happen to our protagonist and take history forward. It was quite fun to build.

The series begins with a spectacular opening scene, a chase scene between a car and a truck. Did you create it as a real tribute to the Steven Spielberg duel?

of course. The duel is a super thriller, with this annoying “figure” of a truck that perfectly matches the idea of ​​the series and this danger that follows our hero, he does not know why and what it represents.

But there are many hints and blinks throughout the series: There is no country for the elderly, the eternal sun of the mindless mind, Pulp Fiction. The Cohen brothers certainly have the greatest influence on us because they have the same sense of humor and the same sensitivity as we do.

“Tourist” mixes a lot of stories and characters, it’s quite a difficult story. Was this series harder to write than your previous creations like Liar or Missing?

All of our series were hard to write, but it was really hard. Fortunately, quite paradoxically, the filming of Tourist was delayed for a year due to Covid, which allowed us to have much more time to write than expected.

This was especially useful for the second half of the series. The first three episodes were written entirely, but the sequel was more difficult.

Every time you write, there is always an episode that creates a problem. Where we say to ourselves “My God, this does not make sense”. This happened to us on The Tourist and several times we wanted to throw everything in the trash. But in the end we did not have to come this far. We managed to solve the points of the scenario that were causing us problems.

Jamie Dornan finds one of his best roles here and it is especially funny. Did you have his name in mind from the beginning?

We suggested his name at the beginning of the creative process, but Jamie got into another shoot and unfortunately was unable to free himself. And then, finally, the Covid epidemic came and the delay in filming allowed us to have it.

I had seen fifty shades of gray and autumn. I used to say, “I saw a sexy Jamie, I saw a scary Jamie, but I never saw a funny Jamie.” And when I met him, I immediately realized that he had a real sense of humor and would be perfect in the role of “man”. He was a real gift to us and we rewrote part of the series considering what he could do in terms of humor and humor.

In anticipation of the 2nd season of Tourist, do you have any other upcoming projects you can talk about?

We are working on several projects that have not yet been announced but are similar to The Tourist.

Can we expect Baptiste Season 3, the spin-off of The Missing, hosted by Check Cario?

Not now. The end of Season 2 meant a break. But he is a character we like very much and who may one day return. You just have to find the right story to tell.

Source: allocine

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