EMILY BLUNT and Jamie Dornan have broken their silence on the dodgy Irish accents that dominated the discussions around their new film Wild Mountain Thyme.
The two actors came in for intense ridicule after the first trailer for the Ireland-set romcom was released online.
Critics from across Ireland and beyond were quick to poke fun at the film, which was mocked for its myriad Irish clichés and hilariously bad attempts at an Irish brogue.
Now, after several months away from the spotlight and potentially in hiding the pair have come out fighting with Blunt and Dornan telling Sky News they are “not going to lose any sleep” or the ridicule they have faced.
"It's kind of par for the course, I'm from Ireland and we're known for taking the p*** pretty much out of everything - it almost comes with the territory," Dornan said.
"I think that's fine, and at the end of the day, everyone's going to have their opinion. We are doing the accents that we planned to do."
The 38-year-old came in for the most mockery given that he is actually from Northern Ireland.
However, the Fifty Shades of Grey star was keen to defend himself.
"There's so many dialects based on a very small island and I get the p*** taken out of me for the way I sound all the time, just as me,” he said.
“A lot of people don't understand me all the time, and that's fine. That's something I've dealt with my whole life."
Blunt, meanwhile, who is England, told the broadcaster she was not surprised to be on the receiving end of these kind of comments.
"I think it was sort of to be expected in some ways, I think we all knew it on the day. We're neither of us from that part of the world. And so ultimately, when you're doing an accent, you just do your best,” she said.
"Luckily, this film is not really about accents, it's about something much bigger than that. So, I think we all took it fairly lightly. I just want people to go and see it now and be transported to the fact that this is really a love letter to Ireland.
"We loved doing it, we loved being in Ireland, we loved the Irish people. So, I think the p***-taking from Irish people about people who aren't from Ireland playing Irish, I sort of shoulder shrug about it really."
Wild Mountain Thyme tells the story of a budding romance between Blunt’s character Rosemary and an Irish farmer called Anthony (Dornan) in the Westmeath town of Mullingar.
Their courtship is complicated by a family dispute over a farm and – in a bizarre twist – Anthony’s desire to be a bee. Yes, an actual honey bee.
Based on the hit Broadway play Outside Mullingar by Oscar-winning Moonstruck scribe John Patrick Shanley.
Shanley’s father was Irish and according to Dornan he told his actors if they "sounded anything like the real people [the film's] based on, nobody would understand".
"So, we're trying to find accents that everyone in the world will understand and that's what we feel we did,” he said.
“We're not going to lose any sleep over some people having a bit of fun with it."
Wild Mountain Thyme is being released in the UK on April 30, and in cinemas in the Republic of Ireland later in the summer.
See More: Emily Blunt, Film, Jamie Dornan, Wild Mountain Thyme
