The whirlwind weather of the Irish countryside is as much a star of “Wild Mountain Thyme” as actors Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan.
They spent several weeks in Ireland last year shooting a movie about two farmers who struggle with their romantic feelings, and the cameras didn’t stop rolling even if it was raining, snowing or hailing.
When the day came to shoot a particularly significant scene, the movie’s makers took the weather to another level.
“It was almost like it wasn’t quite raining enough, so they just put on this tsunami-like rain machine to add to the passion,” Blunt recalled to the Daily News.
“But it certainly helped. It kind of swept you away. Literally, you couldn’t see straight because you had so much rain in your face, but you didn’t have any time to strategize anything. We didn’t rehearse it. … We did two takes, and that’s what’s in the movie. It was kind of amazing working like that.”
In the movie, now playing in select theaters and via video on demand, Blunt’s character, Rosemary, has loved her neighbor Anthony, played by Dornan, since childhood, but is repeatedly disappointed as he refuses to confess his feelings.
“They’re completely dysfunctional,” Blunt said with a laugh. “They certainly don’t have a straight arrow of a relationship. It’s fairly unrequited.”
Further complicating matters is that Anthony’s American cousin, played by Jon Hamm, wants to buy his farm, and has also developed feelings for Rosemary.
Dornan, who starred as Christian Grey in the “50 Shades of Grey” movies, said he’d never previously played anyone like his character in “Wild Mountain Thyme,” which was directed and written by John Patrick Shanley.
“He has many tendencies that are perhaps a wee bit closer to myself, but far enough away for me to have a little fun with it and put whatever insecurities and oddities I have as myself into him, and then enhance them once I’m Anthony,” Dornan said.
Shooting took place on an actual working farm in County Mayo, and both Blunt, 37, and Dornan, 38, were blown away by the set’s natural beauty.
Dornan was born in Northern Ireland and grew up about 200 miles from where “Wild Mountain Thyme” takes place. He learned a new accent in an effort to reflect the rural region where his character is from.
“I will always want to tell Irish stories, stories from home, because I’m proud to be from there,” Dornan said. “It means a lot to me. There’s plenty of stories to tell. We’re sort of known for being a nation of storytellers, so I want to tell those stories for the rest of my career.”
The release of the romantic movie concludes a year for Blunt that’s seen two other films, “A Quiet Place Part II” and “Jungle Cruise,” postponed until 2021 over the coronavirus pandemic.
Blunt believes “Wild Mountain Thyme” came out at the perfect time.
“We need something uplifting and joyful to watch right now around the holidays,” Blunt said. “It is the kind of film you want to creep under your coziest blanket with your family and watch.”
