The BBC's amnesia thriller, The Tourist, is returning on January 1, promising more hair-raising drama as Jamie Dornan's Elliot finds out more about his real identity.
Series one followed Elliot Stanley (or The Man), who woke up in hospital after a car crash and had no idea who he was. But very soon it became clear that he wasn't just an ordinary bloke, in so far as people were enthusiastically trying to kill him. So far, so Jason Bourne; we've written a quick summary of the last series here.
In the upcoming second series, Elliot and his girlfriend Helen (Danielle Macdonald) travel to Ireland to discover more about Elliot's past. But of course, it's not a peaceful amble in the Wicklow Mountains: Elliot's crimes once again start catching up with him.
Here is the 411 on the characters set to lead the next season.
Jamie Dornan plays Elliot Stanley
41-year-old Dornan, who is best known for playing Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise and Paul Spector in The Fall, returns to play Elliot or The Man. We pick up with the ex-con months after the first season ended. Constable Helen Chambers is now his girlfriend, and the couple have been travelling the world, enjoying each others' company – leaving Elliot's past in the Australian outback where they first met.
Helen suggests visiting Ireland so that they can try and find out more about Elliot's true identity, much of which he still can't remember. But returning to the motherland unearths more than they both bargained for.
Speaking to the BBC, Dornan said: "We were only ever meant to have the one series; I remember Jack and Harry Williams who created the show saying it will just be one. I don't think we expected it to be the most watched show in the UK that year and when there's that much of an appetite, it felt like the right thing to give people more.
"For the second [series] we are in Ireland, which has a very different vibe. It's tricky trying to establish the different settings and make it its own thing but also honour what people loved about the first series. I was excited by it, it’s an exciting thing to continue the journey."
Danielle Macdonald plays Helen Chambers
Detective Helen Chambers has put her life on pause to spend time with her new beau Elliot. She's in love with the mysterious man who seems genuinely anguished about his past behaviour, but there's still so much she doesn't know about him, and sometimes this reality makes her feel a little uneasy."Helen has left Australia and gone to Ireland with her boyfriend, to try and figure out a little bit more of who he is," said Irish actor Danielle Macdonald, whose credits include 2 Broke Girls, American Horror Story: Roanoke, Lady Bird and Bird Box.
"We've got two feuding Irish families that our characters get entangled in. There's a lot of quirky characters within that, which has been fun to play with. I came on set and all of a sudden nothing was familiar. I was with completely new actors, directors, and creatives. It was really interesting to throw Helen into that world and see how she reacts."
Reflecting on her character's development, Macdonald continued: "She's still Helen, but she's also a bit more confident, a bit stronger, and a bit more vocal in certain ways."
Conor MacNeill plays Detective Ruairi Slater
"Ruairi is a detective who meets Helen very early on in the series and becomes sort of embroiled in the investigation of these two warring families that Elliot Stanley is also very much involved in," said Irish actor Conor MacNeill, speaking to the BBC.
"Ruairi’s very particular," added MacNeill. "I think he's maybe not the best at his job. He certainly likes bending the rules a little bit... and I think he's always just a little bit out of his depth." Ruairi is a complicated character who struggles with loneliness and some mental health issues. He finds himself drawn to Helen.
Conor MacNeill starred opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Martin McDonagh's play The Cripple of Inishmaan in 2012, and has since starred in a number of popular series including The Fall, Peep Show, Derry Girls and Industry.
Olwen Fouéré plays Niamh Cassidy
Olwen Fouéré plays Niamh Cassidy, the head of one the two rival families who are central to the plot of the second series. The turf war has been going on for decades and Niamh has lost friends and family members to the bloody feud. Elliot stumbles right back into this fractious history when he returns home.
"The central themes in the series are feuding families," explained 69-year-old Irish actor, model, writer and director Olwen Fouéré to the BBC. "Viewers will be asking ‘what are the connections?’ ‘Why have these feuds happened?’ and [the series] is really a quest for answers."
Fouéré has appeared in countless films, TV shows and stage plays over five decades, and is co founder of the avant-garde theatre company Operating Theatre, which was formed in 1980. She has walked for major fashion houses including Simone Rocha.
"Niamh Cassidy is a very intriguing and enigmatic character," added Fouéré. "You never quite know what she's thinking. It's not exactly that there's a performative element to her but Niamh is so used to living and operating in a way that you never know whether what she is saying is the truth."
Mark McKenna plays Fergal McDonnell
Fergal is the youngest member of the second rival family, the McDonnells, and has therefore felt less of the impact of the generations-long drama. Unlike other members of his family, he isn't interested in enacting revenge or causing anyone else harm.
"Fergal is so different from any character I've played in the past, which is a very welcome challenge," said 27-year-old Mark McKenna, whose credits include Peacock's drama series One of Us Is Lying (2021-2022). "He's very much a character who doesn't know his place in the world and he's trying to figure that out, and I feel like everyone goes through that."
Francis Magee plays Frank McDonnell
Frank is Niamh's opposite number, heading up the McDonnell family. The BBC describe him as a "cold, calm and authoritative" and "respectful of history and the past". As is the case with Niamh, Elliot's reappearance isn't exactly welcomed by Frank."He's cool, and by cool I mean cold. He's ruthless," explained Dublin-born Francis Magee to the BBC. "But he's not a thug or anything – he doesn't raise his voice, he has no need to. He likes a fine whiskey and a fine wine."
Magee has featured in Layer Cake (2004), Brighton Rock (2010), Game of Thrones (2011-2012) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).
