Jamie Dornan is finding the humor in the internet’s harsh reaction to the celebrity-filled viral “Imagine” video he appeared in last month, saying that Kristen Wiig even apologized for asking him to join her in the misguided effort to lift people’s spirits amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Listen, it’s a funny thing. Not being on social media, I wasn’t really that aware of the negative reaction to it, but I was made aware quite quickly by some mates,” Dornan told Shane Todd on his “Tea With Me” podcast Wednesday. “Look, it was early on in the lockdown process.”
The “50 Shades of Grey” actor added that Wiig, who he got to know when they filmed the comedy “Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar,” has since apologized for asking him to be a part of the infamous video, which features celebrities singing lines of the John Lennon song while self-isolating in their sprawling mansions. It has been heavily criticized for its tone-deafness (both literally and metaphorically), as so many Americans have lost their jobs and are struggling to pay rent.
“Kristen texted me a couple of days later going, ‘Sorry,’” he laughed. “And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ and she said, ‘Well, there’s been a lot of negative stuff, we were just trying to do a nice thing.’”
While Dornan defended the video, saying that Wiig and Gal Gadot’s goal was simply to “lift people’s spirits,” he also addressed the problematic aspects.
“I’ll tell you what the problem was — I literally did mine in the toilet of my house,” he confessed. “Quite clearly, people had escaped to their second home. There’s too much acreage in the background, too many beautiful trees swinging, clearly by an ocean, that sort of craic. I was quite aware of that.” He added that he tried “to make it normal.”
Although Dornan hasn’t looked at the negative comments people are saying about the video online, he couldn’t help but laugh at the ribbing he got from friends.
“One of my mates, another actor, texted me saying, ‘Yeah, I’m just watching this video with these pompous, self-righteous, wanker actors singing about — Oh,’” he laughed.
“I just got dragged along with it,” he said of the video. “But listen, what are we going to do?”
Watch Dornan’s full interview on the podcast below.