Jamie Dornan first starred opposite the charming child actor Jude Hill in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning black-and-white film Belfast.
The Northern Irish star of The Fall played a version of Branagh’s father in the semi-autobiographical 2021 movie about his childhood during The Troubles, while Hill played his son Buddy, the little boy based on Branagh himself.
Two years later and the trio have reunited again, but this time for a very different project – a big-screen adaptation of an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
A Haunting In Venice sees Belfast-born Branagh, 62, reprising his role as Hercule Poirot, following on from Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile.
The unsettling supernatural thriller is based upon Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party, but the setting is moved from the English countryside to Venice, Italy and instead of taking place over the best part of a week, the film is essentially a ghost story taking place in a haunted house over one scary night.
While Belfast was set in the 1960s, A Haunting In Venice is set two decades earlier, in the years immediately following World War II.
“Jamie Dorman and Jude Hill play father and son, and they couldn’t be more different from the roles they play in Belfast,” Branagh says. “And it was a really beautiful thing to reunite with them.
“Jamie has, unsurprisingly, a rather fatherly relationship with Jude. They get along and they tease each other, but it was a different dynamic this time. They both went with the mood of the piece, and both kept their English accents together very strongly.”
What is real❓#AHauntingInVenice, only in cinemas September 15. pic.twitter.com/XPjKasegpZ
— 20th Century Studios UK (@20thCenturyUK) September 5, 2023
Poirot has retired to Italy and left his career of crime solving behind, but when he is invited to a seance by his old friend and mystery writer Ariadne Oliver (played by Tina Fey), he gets drawn back into sleuthing all over again.
The seance takes place at the home of opera singer Rowena Drake (played by Kelly Reilly) and Holywood-born Dornan, 41, whose previous film roles include 50 Shades Of Grey, A Private War and Heart Of Stone, plays Dr Leslie Ferrier, the Drake family’s doctor, an Englishman who is suffering from PTSD after serving as a military doctor in the war.
Originally a good doctor who tended to many families, he was told to stop practicing medicine when the war was over but couldn’t refuse Rowena Drake’s request to help her daughter.
“He’s a pretty fractured guy,” says Dornan. “He has lost a lot, but is clinging on, and the things that keep him going are his son, Leopold, and his love for Rowena Drake.
“He has this fierce sort of infatuation with her, and she has him wrapped around her little finger. So, there’s a bit of desperation to him because he has very little confidence, is riddled with PTSD and is very jumpy.”
Now he relies heavily on his son to help him with his work, and Branagh was thrilled with how much Hill, now 12, had evolved as an actor since their first collaboration on Belfast.
“In Jude, you could immediately see the sophistication of his acting technique growing, and he gives a fantastic performance.
“Jamie’s character, Dr Ferrier, is a damaged individual by his time in the war, having seen horrors that have left him scarred and mentally shaky. And his son is the one really tending to him and applying medication, and being old beyond his years.”
“Leopold is a 10-year-old throughout the movie, but I wouldn’t say his intelligence level is that of a 10-year-old,” adds Hill. “He is very mature and prides himself on his intelligence. He knows he’s pretty smart, and I love that about him.”
“The dynamic between him and his father is quite unusual.
“I like to think of it as Leopold being the adult in the relationship and his father being the child. Leopold is his caretaker if you will. He always has the pills, and if his dad feels a bit iffy, he always asks his dad, ‘Do you want to go? Do you need a pill?’ He is always thinking of his dad.”
Working with Branagh on Belfast landed Dornan a string of awards nominations, including a nod from the Irish Film and Television Academy, and he jumped at the chance to reunite, especially since Sir Kenneth was back in the director’s chair, as well as taking on the starring role.
“Ken’s direction is incredibly tight,” Dornan says. “It’s been amazing watching him master everything; getting all the big story beats in, creating characters that the audience will understand and become invested in… that’s quite a feat to pull that off.”
Branagh – who is acclaimed as a Shakespearean actor on stage and screen and for his directing of films such as Much Ado About Nothing, Thor and Cinderella – even stayed in character as the Belgian detective while he was directing.
“It’s an incredible feat,” says Dornan, “and my hat is firmly off to him with how he manages it so seamlessly.
“It’s been a very different experience working with him this time, and I’m even more impressed with him than I was in Belfast in a way, because of how much he had to deal with on any given day.”
A Haunting In Venice is in Irish cinemas from September 15th.
