Jamie Dornan has opened up about the one scene in Belfast that left him in “floods of tears” during filming.
Dornan– who recently appeared in the BBC series The Tourist – stars in Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical, black-and-white film about a young boy growing up in Northern Ireland during unrest in the Sixties.
In the film, Dornan plays a father trying to protect his family from violence that erupts in Belfast as the city is rocked by The Troubles.
In a new interview with People, the actor – who is from Belfast – recalled the emotional process of filming the movie.
There was one scene in particular, however, that left him and the cast in “floods of tears”.
“The final day we did a scene where we’re all walking down the street and they’re playing Van Morrison’s ‘And the Healing Has Begun,’ and we were all in floods of tears,” he recalled.
“That song means so much to me anyway, most Van Morrison music means a lot to me, if you’re from that part of the world, it just does. And even Ken [Branagh] was walking with us, because there’s a point when Ken was in the movie too.”
The 39-year-old continued: “I’ll never forget that moment. The privilege I felt to be in that movie with those people and have had that experience in the final day was incredible.”
Morrison – who is Northern Irish – recorded “And the Healing Has Begun” in 1979.
Elsewhere in the interview, Dornan recalled his childhood in Belfast as “truly brilliant”.
“It wasn’t all doom and gloom,” said the actor. “As much as there was a civil war raging for that amount of time, there was also lots of light as well.”
Belfast is in cinemas now. You can read The Independent’s three-star review here.
