Looking back, Jamie Dornan remembers the "ridicule" he endured because of "Fifty Shades of Grey," which was so severe that it prompted him to hide.
The actor "hid" in 2015 as the film "Fifty Shades of Grey," based on the bestselling romance novel by E.L. James, was getting a barrage of bad reviews, according to an episode of "Desert Island Discs" that was published on Sunday by BBC Radio 4's. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 25% approval rating, indicating that critics were mostly unimpressed.
Dornan withstood the onslaught of criticism at the home of filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson. "We went to Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron (Taylor-Johnson), her husband, their place, and they weren't there," he commented. "They let us have their place in the country, and we sort of hid there for a while and shut ourselves off from the world for a bit."
"Then you're like, 'Alright, there's a bit of ridicule here, and I'm now contractually doing two more of them,'" he joked as he spoke. "And knowing that they'll be much more of that damnation to come."
Although he lamented that people continually bring up his performance in Christian Grey, alongside Dakota Johnson, even when he's getting good reviews for other movies, Dornan insisted that he doesn't regret playing the part. "A lot of reviews are like, 'He's great, but lest we forget when he wasn't great here,'" chuckled him.
Many critically praised films have featured Dornan since the "Fifty Shades" series concluded. One such film is the 2021 romantic drama "Belfast," directed by Kenneth Branagh, which received seven Oscar nominations. In 2022, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for best supporting actor. Dornan worked with Branagh again in 2023 on the mystery "A Haunting in Venice," and the result was generally good critical reception.
In the midst of her current novel's protagonist, author E.L. James calls Christian Grey "utterly exhausting."
Johnson, who co-starred with Dornan in "Fifty Shades of Grey," has been as forthright about her time on set, telling Vanity Fair in 2022 that she "signed up to do a very different version of the film" than what was ultimately produced. Just like Dornan, Johnson has stated that she doesn't "regret" the films, despite the fact that their production was "psychotic."
In an interview with the BBC, Dornan said that he, like many performers, suffers from "massively" crippling self-doubt. "I'm happier with my self-doubt because it always gives you something to try to prove," he commented.
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