Jamie Dornan has defended Gal Gadot’s much-derided ”Imagine” video, insisting that the actor was “trying to do good thing”.
Last month, Gadot gathered a wide-ranging number of Hollywood stars, including Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell and Amy Adams, to sing small parts of the John Lennon track for a video that had been created in the hope of lifting spirits amid the coronavirus outbreak. However, it was quickly criticised for being “cringey” and “out-of-touch”.
Speaking on comedian Shane Todd’s Tea with Me podcast, the Irish actor explained he was asked to take part in the video by Kristen Wiig, with whom he stars in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.
“Kristen and I did a movie together last summer that’s meant to be coming out on July 31 but who knows what will happen,” Dornan began.
“We got on brilliantly. I would do anything for her – that’s how highly I think of her. I was the biggest fan of her before anyway.”
As for how Wiig asked Dornan to get involved, he explained: “Kristen texted, ‘Gal and I are trying to organise this thing to lift spirits.’
“So I was like: ‘Of course I’ll do it’. Then she texted days later saying, ‘Sorry’.”
He insisted that Gadot was “trying to do a good thing”, adding: “I just got dragged along with it”.
Dornan added that because he isn’t on social media, he wasn’t aware of the negative reaction surrounding the video but that he was “made aware by mates”.
The 37-year-old added that he filmed his clip in the bathroom of his home.
“I’ll tell you what the problem was. I literally did mine in the toilet of my house. Quite clearly, some people had escaped to their second home.
“There’s too much acreage in the background, too many beautiful trees swaying in the background, clearly in front of an ocean, that sort of craic. I was quite aware of that whenever I was doing it, to make it normal.”
