The Belfast-born actor said he was “very open-minded” to the idea of it.
Dornan (41) said: “The wrong language has been used for too long and they need to tell people how it would look for health and education and economically, and the actual everyday things of life, rather than the sentimentality of it, the flag in it, and all that bulls**t that’s been wrecking the place for many, many years.”
He said of a united Ireland: “I’d be very intrigued to know what that looks like. There’s more of a willingness to talk about it than there has been in my lifetime and I’m very open-minded to the idea of it.”
The actor, who is married to Amelia Warner and has three daughters, was speaking ahead of the airing of a new season of the hit thriller series The Tourist on New Year’s Day.
The second series will focus on Elliot and probationary constable Helen Chambers (played by Danielle Macdonald) as they continue to hunt for answers relating to his identity. In doing so they are forced to face the dangerous consequences of his past actions.
The filming for the second series took place in Ireland and viewers will get a chance to see the results early next week.
Dornan, who has appeared in such films and TV shows as The Siege of Jadotville and The Fall, said the production was like “a Tourism Ireland advert” because of how it showcased the country and told of his appreciation for the Irish crew he worked with on the production.
The Tourist follows amnesia-ridden car crash survivor Elliot (Dornan) from Northern Ireland, who attempts to retrace his life before unravelling a larger mystery.
All the action takes place while Elliot is stranded in Australia’s outback.
Dornan said it would be a big change for the audience, who were accustomed to different scenery in the series.
“I hope they enjoy it as much as the first. We are offering up something a bit different purely by geography. I feel like the colour of the outback, the scale of it and fear was a major character in the first series,” he said. “We’ve taken that away this time and we have suddenly gone from the orangey dirt of the outback to the lush green settings of Ireland. Particularly with the first episode, it’s like a Tourism Ireland advert.
“It’s different and I hope that people are on board with that and get the same sort of satisfaction as they did from the first series. The humour is all there, and the story is as mad as the first series.”
On the producer experience, Dornan said: “It’s been great. It was one of those opportunities that presented itself to me and I was excited to do it.
“It’s also nice to do it in a capacity where I already have the relationship with everyone involved and to come into this having already committed so much to the project.”
Episode one of series two of ‘The Tourist’ airs on BBC One on New Year’s Day at 9pm