As France 2 broadcasts the end of “The Tourist” tomorrow evening, screenwriter Harry Williams returned for us to the influences of the series, from “Duel” to the Coen brothers, and on the choice of Jamie Dornan, who almost passed next to the title role.
Launched last Monday on France 2, and awarded the Best Series prize a few days ago at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, the thriller The Tourist, worn by Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey) and Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake $), already ends this Monday evening with the broadcast of the last three episodes of season 1.
Met in Monte-Carlo a few days ago, screenwriter and producer Harry Williams, who created The Tourist with his brother Jack Williams, returned for us to the genesis and influences of this series in which Jamie Dornan embodies a man who , after a road accident, wakes up in the Australian outback with no memories. But with the certainty that we are trying to kill him. And that his past has something to do with it.
AlloCiné: How did the idea of The Tourist come about?
Harry Williams : We wanted to write an existential thriller. The central question of the series is “Who am I?”. And each character is launched on a quest for self-discovery.
And to tackle such a theme, the hero’s amnesia seemed ideal to us. But it is a process that we have seen a lot on television and in the cinema, whether in soaps or in the Jason Bourne saga. So we had to treat amnesia in a different way and we wanted to move towards something more real, with which the viewers could identify, and also something darker.
From there, we wondered in what environment we were going to immerse our hero who is completely lost and who is literally wondering who he is. And the Australian outback quickly became obvious. Because it is a kind of infinite desert expanse, where one can easily get lost, where one is quickly disoriented. And suddenly all these absurd things happen to our main character and move the story forward. It was quite fun to build.
The series begins with a breathtaking opening scene, a chase scene between a car and a truck. Did you design it as a real tribute to Steven Spielberg’s Duel?
Sure. Duel is a super thriller, with this disturbing “figure” of the truck, which fit perfectly with the idea of the series and this threat which follows our hero, without him knowing why and what it represents.
But there are many references and winks throughout the series: No Country for Old Men, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pulp Fiction. The Coen brothers being certainly the biggest influence for us because they have the same sense of humor and the same sensitivity as us.
The Tourist mixes a lot of plots and characters, it’s quite a complex story. Was this series harder to write than your previous creations like Liar or The Missing?
All our series have been hard to write, but it’s true that this one was particularly complex. Fortunately, in a rather paradoxical way, the filming of The Tourist was postponed by a year due to the Covid, which allowed us to have a much longer writing time than expected.
It was particularly useful for the second half of the series. The first three episodes were completely written, but the sequel was more complex to build.
Anyway, when you write, there is always an episode that poses a problem. Where we say to ourselves “My god, this does not make any sense”. It happened to us on The Tourist, and we, at several times, wanted to throw everything in the trash. But ultimately we didn’t have to come to that. We have managed to resolve the story points that were causing us problems.
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Jamie Dornan finds here one of his best roles and is particularly funny. Did you have his name in mind from the start?
We suggested his name quite early in the creative process, but Jamie was caught up in another shoot and unfortunately couldn’t free himself. And then, in the end, the Covid epidemic arrived and the delay in filming allowed us to have it.
I had seen Fifty Shades of Gray and The Fall. And I was like, ‘I’ve seen the sexy Jamie, I’ve seen the scary Jamie, but I’ve never seen the funny Jamie. And when I met him I immediately understood that he had a real sense of humor and that he was going to be perfect in the role of “the man”. He was a real gift to us, and we rewrote part of the series with in mind what he was capable of in terms of humor and jokes.
While waiting for season 2 of The Tourist, do you have any other upcoming projects that you can talk about?
We are working on several projects that have yet to be announced, but are in a similar vein to The Tourist.
Can we expect a season 3 of Baptiste, the spin-off of The Missing worn by Tchéky Karyo?
Not at the moment. The end of season 2 was meant as a break. But he’s a character that we really like and who could come back one day. You just have to find the right story to tell.