Dornan freed to be silly in ‘Barb & Star’
Jamie Dornan should have gone to a fake resort in Florida a long time ago.
The former “Fifty Shades of Grey” star shows off impressively zany comedic chops in “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” (available now on video-ondemand platforms), Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s absurd new comedy about two middle-aged Midwesterners who break out of their comfort zone and head south for a wild vacation full of trippy cocktails and wisetalking crabs.
Once firmly ensconced in the shellbedecked, Mai Tai-soaked resort life, the chatty duo bed a handsome stranger (Dornan) who is in fact a spy involved in a malicious plan to attack a local festival “where the clams are hot and the crowd is on the older side.” If you’ve read this far, you can probably tell “Barb & Star” is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of film. But lo and behold, it’s become kind of a thing.
Dornan, 38, gives it his all as a tormented soul who dips into self-help books to reconcile his torment over his evil mistress (also Wiig) driving the plot. The actor and dad of three explains embracing the Tommy Bahama life while calling from the U.K.
Question: How are you feeling about all the positive feedback for “Barb & Star”? A movie like this probably feels like a huge gamble.
Jamie Dornan: Any comedy is a risk, isn’t it? This is not some linear, normal, expected form of comedy. It’s pretty out there. If you wanted to dislike it, it would be easy to in a way because you could dismiss it as being too silly. But luckily, the world seemed to be up for a bit of silliness right now.
Q: Is there a specific moment where you were on set in Cancun going, is this going to work?
Dornan: Maybe every single moment?
Q: I’d forgotten you sang in “Fifty Shades Freed.” So when you went all out singing the pining ballad “Edgar’s Prayer,” I was totally surprised.
Dornan: Yeah, I kind of forgot that I’d sang in “Fifty Shades Freed”! But that in itself was a terrifying experience because we shot that entire thing in Whistler at Sarah Mclachlan’s house and that was her (expletive) piano and she’d just played for the entire crew, she’d sang a couple of her monster, giant songs that everybody knows and everyone was crying. And they were like, ‘All right Jamie, next up!’ And I was like ... I’m not following that!
This was very different, obviously, But it was hard to sing! It’s like a big ’80s bar ballad, essentially. I was exhausted after recording that song.
Q: It also required you to sell lyrics like “Seagulls in the sand, can you hear my prayer?”
Dornan: I can’t even tell you, weirdly, how comfortably those words sat within me.
Q: It’s all the funnier that over Christmas you posted your children shouting “Daddy, shush!” as you tried to sing carols.
Dornan: Oh, they hated it. My wife wasn’t in the room at that point. Had my wife been in the room, she would have been joining the chorus of boos.
Q: So have your kids seen any of “Barb & Star”?
Dornan: They want to watch my song all the time and the song when (Wiig and Mumolo) arrive at the hotel. But the older two are 5 and 7, they watched almost the whole movie the other day and I was sort of tactically coming in – I think there’s only two times anybody swears and it’s me both times – and I came in at that moment and I was talking over (it). And some stuff is just over their head.
ACROSS
1 Alphabetical
nickname
4 Belly, to a tot
7 Incoming flight stat
10 Org. concerned with teeth Schlep Spanish for “one” *Rest against Zazie Beetz show set in Georgia’s capital
It’s hotter than a jalapeno
20 See 22-Across
22 With 20-Across, constructing a country’s identity ... or what’s happening in the starred answers? (Note: Read the extra letters in order for a bonus) Make a priest, say Waterfall spray *”Not a chance!” Estimate Lead-in to “carte” They were big and woolly
Story with a lesson “Good evening,” in Nice
41 Shortcomings
43 Sprinted
44 Washer cycle
45 *Longtime U.S. airline ___-Carlton Andean relative of a camel 13 14 15 17
19 23 25 26 29 31 32
35 39 48 50 52 *Misrepresent
54 *Jones is a common one Like Morehouse Rode a bike *Spain’s main airline
Singer Difranco How technology quickly starts to feel
___ cream social Feature of “i” or “j,” but not “k” List-ending abbr. Plaything 58 60 61
62 63
64 65
66 67
DOWN
1 Chunk of marble
2 South African Nobelist Desmond
3 Unattractivesounding fruit Largely treeless Arctic region
5 Not neat
6 Disney film whose title is Maori for “ocean”
7 Chi-town trains
8 Future twentysomething Jill who was The New York Times’ first female executive editor Mitchell or Nin Prohibition’s beginning? Soon, quaintly Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera 4 9 10 11
12 16 18
21 24 26 27
28 30
32 33
34 36
37 38
40
42 45 46 47 48
49 51 52 53
55 56
57 59
“That was ___ blow!” Billion: Prefix Desensitizes Siesta “Frozen” snowman
___ avis Angsty rock style Genius’ organization “Hava Nagila” dance Thailand, once Expensive slot in the Super Bowl broadcast Major snowstorm “Fast & Furious 6” director Justin Molecule in a cell
Hair goops Source of life? Tart to the taste Granny
The Holy Grail, for one Exclamation of amazement Cocoon occupants Indonesian vacation destination Boy in “Call Me by Your Name” Tons and tons NBA star Anthony, for short Small whirlpool Consume