The Untold Truth Of Jamie Dornan
Jamie Dornan has made quite a career out of being a real-life sexual fantasy. The male supermodel turned Hollywood hunk has been called everything from "the male Kate Moss" to the "Golden Torso." Doubling-down on the objectified superlatives, Elle dubbed Dornan's breakout role in Fifty Shades of Grey as wealthy sexual sociopath Christian Grey as "the physical embodiment of a billion housewives' sexual fantasies."
Despite the obvious outward appearance, Dornan is a lot more than just a pretty face (and rock hard abs). He's come a long way from your ordinary rugby-scrumming Northern Irish lad, who also happens to be the son of a renowned gynecologist. However, his seemingly charmed life has taken some tragic turns, which adds a layer to his dark acting roles in Fifty Shades and the acclaimed Netflix series, The Fall, where he plays the likable, sexy serial killer Paul Spector.
Dornan might be living the dream as an A-list actor, but his colorful past is dotted with shades of comedy, drama and tragedy. Here is the untold truth of Jamie Dornan.
Jamie Dornan wrote a folk song about his ex Kiera Knightley
Before Jamie Dornan became a Hollywood leading man, he was just a Calvin Klein cover model and aspiring indie folk artist ... who was dating Kiera Knightley. In the early 2000's, the future Christian Grey was the frontman of Sons of Jim, an Irish indie band he started with schoolmate David Alexander. "We came from similar backgrounds at home," Alexander told their hometown Belfast newspaper, the News Letter, of their "organic" decision to start a band. "I always liked Bob Dylan and Beach Boys and lyrical stuff-big time! Then Jamie and I kept finding ourselves singing with guitars late at nights at parties, and then we gradually began to collaborate on songwriting and take our career seriously."
According to the Daily Mirror, it was during his band days that Dornan's two-year relationship with the Pride and Prejudice star fizzled, because he felt "intimidated" by "her fame." However, all was not lost as he was able to turn their ill-fated love story into a song, "Only On The Outside," that has lyrics such as, "I can see your fancy friends trying to steal your innocence... you're so weak around them." Sons of Jim enjoyed a fleeting notoriety, even opening for KT Tunstall, but Dornan eventually dropped the mic in 2008, according to Vulture. However, he did dust off his vocal chops for the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack, where he contributed a bonus track, a cover of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed."
'The Golden Torso'
Once dubbed "The Golden Torso" by the The New York Times, Jamie Dornan looks back at his career as a top model as merely a lucrative side hustle. "I've never felt massively satisfied from standing there while someone takes my photograph,' he told the Evening Standard. "It's never given me a thrill." So why put "it" all out there? For Dornan, the answer is simple. "It would take a very foolish man to turn down the stuff that was offered to me. You're in your twenties, and people are going to give you a silly amount of money to lean against a wall with your head down. F*** me, you've got to do it."
Ironically, Dornan's big break came from a reality television show, Model Behaviour, that Her described as "like Britain's Next Top Model." According to the Daily Mail, Dornan failed to win a modeling contract but he got connected with celebrity photographer Bruce Weber, who, according to Dornan "gave [him] a couple of jobs early on."
Eventually, Dornan's "trademark 'Dornan furrow'" would propel him to supermodel stardom, although he doesn't pull punches about the industry that made him. "If I meet a male model now, I presume he's stupid," Dornan told Elle, adding, "A lot of them are. I used to get offended. If people knew you were a model, they'd start talking slightly slower, like you literally were the third guy along in Darwin's evolution of man. But I'm not ungrateful."
Jamie Dornan's early life was filled with tragedy
Jamie Dornan's seemingly charmed life has had some dark turns. His mother, Lorna Dornan, died of pancreatic cancer when he was a "naive" teenager. "I was 14 when my mum got diagnosed and had just turned 16 when she died," the Belfast native told the Irish Times. The Fall star looks back at that time in a blur: "I was a wee bit behind compared to my mates growing up, but I had to grow up pretty fast after that. It has an ever evolving effect on me, that loss, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
Tragedy struck again a few months later when four of his close chums died in a car accident. "I had a very rough couple of years that I guess ... I'm still dealing with both of those things today, every day," revealed Dornan on the Out to Lunch with Jay Rayner podcast. Dornan fell into a deep depression, turned to drinking, and eventually dropped out of college to pursue acting and modeling.
The Irish Times reported that Dornan is now a proud patron of the NIPanC (Northern Ireland Pancreatic Cancer) group which "aims to promote better outcomes for pancreatic cancer sufferers in Northern Ireland." The Irishman wished he had the same sort of support group when his mom was sick. "It would have been fantastic to speak to other people going through the same sort of awful situation that we found ourselves in."
Here's why you never saw Jamie Dornan's 'D' in 50 Shades
Jamie Dornan is best-known for showing off a lot more than his acting chops in the Fifty Shades franchise as troubled seducer Christian Grey, but he didn't go full frontal despite the plea of his co-star Dakota Johnson. "I'm going to make him get fully naked in the next one," the actress joked on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live. Johnson, who bares all in the steamy S&M film trilogy, was not shy about starting a "campaign" to satiate thirsty fans. "Everybody wants to see the D."
According to Elle there were rumors that the Irishman was offered $1 million big ones to show off the "Dornan D" in Fifty Shades Freed. "It was $30 million — to show one testicle" Dornan joked in the interview. "No, that whole thing with offering more money to go nude? That didn't happen." Dornan went onto say that nudity should only service the story, adding, "We're not making porn as much as people think we are."
Entertainment Tonight reported that Dornan did indeed let it all hang out for the final Fifty Shades film, but the scenes ended up on the cutting-room floor. "[Dornan and I] never talked about [having him show more]," said the film's director James Foley. "But in the final cut, I'm being totally honest, it just didn't come off... Full frontal would have been a kind of deliberate cut, to see that for no reason." Dornan fans probably disagree.
Jamie Dornan's ex-roommate is an Oscar-winner
Jamie Dornan lived with Eddie Redmayne (above) when they were both struggling actors. In an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, the Robin Hood star said they were both "desperate," and happened to share the same representation. "It was slim pickings in those days for work ... you all go to the same sort of auditions," remembered Dornan. He also recalled an amusing story about how the roommates came home once to find "a pile of scripts" sent from their agent for Dornan. "Eddie didn't take it that well," he recalled. "[Then] about an hour later, the courier arrived ... with the exact same scripts [for him]!"
Redmayne who went onto earn two Best Actor Oscar nominations (and a win), shared his own fond memories of his former roomie on national television. "One of the amazing things about living with Jamie, is it's basically like living with a puppy," the Theory of Everything star said on Good Morning America. He went onto describe the future My Dinner with Hervé actor as having a "twilight zone" period between 5 and 6pm where he needed to expel energy. "You'd have to, like, let him outside," recalled Redmayne with a smile. "And my friends would come for tea, and they'd just see Jamie, like, doing weird star-jumps and things in the garden and it's like, 'What is he doing?!'"
Mr. Potato Head was Jamie Dornan's celebrity man crush
"I'm totally obsessed with Don Rickles," Jamie Dornan revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The Irish heartthrob's man crush on "Mr. Warmth" seems random, but can be traced back to him falling down a YouTube hole. "While searching for Frank Sinatra interviews, I stumbled upon a series of grainy uploads from the original Dean Martin show comedy roasts," Dornan wrote in The Guardian. He went on to praise the legendary insult comic for stealing the spotlight from icons like Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Orson Welles, Ronald Reagan, and Gene Kelly. "The bravado, charm, menace and soaring wit with which he ripped these guys apart was simply monumental and I was hooked."
Dornan's fandom turned to friendship when their stars crossed after Dornan's late night talk show appearance. According to Dornan (via The Guardian), they broke bread and got drunk, talking about everything "from love and loss to Sinatra, Elvis, comedy and politics." Dornan cherishes the moments he got to share with the "Merchant of Venom" aka Mr. Potato Head (Toy Story) before his passing in April 2017. "I simply feel so lucky to have known him, if only for a tiny fraction of his almost 91 years — his birthday would have been in May. The world just lost a lot of laughter," Dornan wrote in his emotional Guardian tribute.
Jamie Dornan's wife has never seen his Fifty Shades movies
Jamie Dornan will forever be linked to his role as S&M playboy Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades Of Grey films, but one person who hasn't seen the film is his wife Amelia Warner (above). "I know she hasn't seen the movies or anything," confessed Dornan on an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. When pressed if it was because "being that guy" is hard to live up to, he offered a nice rebuttal, "I'd like to think she's more in love with me than that guy." He added, with a sly grin, that he just doesn't want to "pay for a ticket" for his actress/musician wife with whom he has three daughters.
According to the Belfast Telegraph, the talented Mary Shelly music composer is open to seeing her husband's breakout films, but she seemed ambivalent over their importance despite tabloid rumors that she was pressuring him to quit the sequels because of the sexually explicit scenes. "It doesn't impact our life much in a day-to-day way," Warner told the Irish newspaper. "Nothing has really changed in our lives since Fifty Shades. The biggest change for us was having kids." In an interview with the Independent, the Lorna Doone actress, who once made tabloid headlines for her "non-legal" marriage to Colin Farrell that "ended four months later," added that a lot of the gossip surrounding the salacious movie franchise was just "smoke and mirrors" to promote the films.