chi would have ever imagined that the protagonist of Fifty Shades of Gray, as well as one of the most disturbing commercials ever, would you blush in front of a personal question?
Yet it happened during this meeting with Jamie Dornan, the Christian Gray of the most read and then most seen saga in the cinema of recent memory, as well as the model who stood out on the Calvin Klein posters wearing only a pair of boxers (that a model was trying to take off from him).
Jamie Dornan (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)
Sure, he’s beautiful, even if on the occasion of our meeting he hides part of his face behind a thick beard, and his chest sculpted inside a t-shirt with the words “Girl Dad” (father of a girl, ed.).
Because the sex symbol Jamie Dornan in everyday life is the loving father of three girls between the ages of four and ten – Alberta, Elva and Dulcie – born from a more than ten-year marriage with the musician and former actress Amelia Warner, after a two-year relationship with Keira Knightley.
Jamie Dornan co-star of Heart of stone
To go back to seeing Jamie in his irresistible version you have to tune into Netflix where, since August 11, he has been co-starring inHeart of stone next to “Wonder Woman” Gal Gadot.
It is an action movie with a very high adrenaline rate, with a lot of evident erotic tension between Jamie and Gal.
The danger to be avoided in the film is the acquisition, by a single central power, of all the information available through the Internet and concerning every citizen of the globe.
“When we made the film it looked like science fiction,” says Dornan. «Today however, after the giant steps taken by technologies and artificial intelligence, the concern that someone you steal all of our sensitive data and feed us false computer-generated information that feels very real to us.”
Jamie Dornan: “I’m a family man”
His character is once again a seducer. Yet in life you are a “family man”, a father of a family…
Yes, just look at my shirt! (laughs). That of sex symbol is a label that they stuck on me without my having chosen it, based on the roles I’ve played and the commercials I’ve appeared in.
And in part I don’t mind: as a husband and father I’m glad I still have a few cartridges to shoot!
I can’t reveal too much about my role in Heart of stone but I tell you that it’s not what it seems at the beginning: I’ve always liked playing with the perception that the public has of my characters.
He once stated that as a boy he was scrawny and unattractive, and also rather unlucky in love. How do you reconcile your current image with that past?
We all have an inner view of ourselves, often characterized by great insecurities.
The difference is that not everyone then sees themselves shot on a giant screen playing the part of the irresistible seducer!
There I am able to put my insecurities aside and pretend to be strong and confident.
Then, as a spectator, I look back and don’t recognize myself, and I’m surprised at how capable I was of deceiving the public.
Maybe inside he still sees himself as the skinny guy girls don’t like. (Here Dornan blushes visibly above his beard, ed.).
It’s something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life, I’m afraid. I’ve gotten good at hiding it from others, but in my eyes I’ll always be that lame kid.
Jamie Dornan: «Acting is a form of therapy»
Many of his characters were deceitful, or even wicked: just think of Christian Gray or the serial killer protagonist of the series The Fall. Yet you seem like a good boy.
I think everyone has a dark side that they would never want to deal with. In real life I’m a sunny guy who likes to make people laugh by being silly and childish.
But I’ve also had very painful experiences—my mother’s death when I was only sixteen, and some friends’ deaths a short time later—that I can draw upon to enter that dark and painful place.
Early in my acting career I refused to explore my dark side but with The Fall I just got right into it, scared at how easily I was able to do it and so convincingly.
After all, acting is a continuous form of therapy, a continuous journey of self-discovery. But that dark side of mine remains confined to the characters I play: I’ve never brought it home with me.
Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)
In life, he is surrounded by women: two older sisters, three daughters, a wife.
In fact, the only male in the house besides me is the dog!
But I feel very lucky to have so many extraordinary female figures around me: perhaps it’s a bit of compensation because my mother passed away when I was still very young.
My father, on the other hand, passed away a couple of years ago, he was a gynecologist who delivered six thousand babies in and around Belfast (Dornan was born in Holywood, a suburb of Belfast, ed ), and he always spoke to me about women with enormous respect, love and I would almost say veneration.
For me, being surrounded by my women is equivalent to feeling safe, in my happy island.
Jamie Dornan: «I worked with Kenneth Branagh»
Having also played awful men, what male examples would she keep her daughters away from?
By all, out of pure paternal jealousy! (laughs).
In fact, many men can be bestial, but the examples my daughters have received are very different: my grandfather, uncles, my friends are good and kind people.
As for me, I think they’ll realize that the negative roles I’ve played are part of the acting profession and have nothing to do with the playful dad they have to deal with in life.
One of the greatest satisfactions of my career was playing Kenneth Branagh’s father, who he adored, in his film Belfast (a role Dornan was nominated for a Golden Globe; Branagh wanted him again for Murder in Venice, which will be released in mid-September, ed.).
How did he conquer his wife?
We met at a mutual friend’s party in Los Angeles thirteen and a half years ago, and within hours I knew we were getting married.
However, I made the formal proposal two years later, on the stairs of my friend’s house where I had seen her for the first time. The house was then sold, but I managed to get a piece of those stairs, which my wife and I jealously guard.
Jamie Dornan: «When I met my wife I knew I would marry her»
Jamie Dornan with wife Amelia Warner
What a romantic gesture…
It’s actually an idea I copied from my father: he had seen my mother for the first time as she came out of a swimming pool, and he asked for the ladder she had climbed on.
That lineup has dominated our living room for thirty-three years, a little incongruous, but moving.
His character in Heart of stone somewhat reminiscent of James Bond. Would you like to be the new 007?
Sure, but it’s not up to me to decide.
I know that my name is one of those that are circulating, like that of many other actors who have been on the list for years, without anything being done about it: if you are of the right age and body and your films have had a certain success you automatically end up in that list.
But since it’s a decision I have no control over, I prefer not to think about it at all, and let fate decide: it’s worked so far.
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