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Jamie Dornan is looking back on his career-defining role of Christian Grey in the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey series.
The Northern Irish star opened up about the experience on the podcast Desert Island Discs with BBC4, where he confessed how much hate he got at the time.
“[I was] coming off the back of career-altering reviews for The Fall and BAFTA nominations and all the madness The Fall brought, to ridicule.”
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Speaking of how he had to shut himself away, Jamie explained that he literally hid at director Sam Taylor Johnson’s home.
“[My family] went down to Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s place. They weren’t there. 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 a bit.”
The actor also explained how tough it was to know that despite all of the hatred, he was contractually obligated to reprise the role two more times.
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For those of you who haven’t seen the film, it follows a college student named Ana (Dakota Johnson), who becomes involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with an older billionaire, Christian Grey.
It’s based off of the steamy book of the same name, and garnered a lot of controversy at the time, due to blurry definitions of consent, and what many felt represented an abusive relationship.
And while it wasn’t considered to be a very good film by most critics – it was a massive commercial success, leading to two more films being produced in quick succession to fill out the franchise.
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The films made over $1 billion at the box office, though they all sit at less than 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yikes.
“It made so much money so like, films two and three were greenlit overnight,” Jamie reflected.
“It was a strange thing because there’s a bit of ridicule here, and I’m now contracted to do two more, knowing that there will be much more damnation to come.”
Jamie added that the role of Christian Grey continues to haunt him, no matter what he does.
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“I’ve just had very glowing reviews for recent work. And there won’t be any that don’t mention Fifty Shades in them,” he shared.
“A lot of reviews are like: ‘He’s great, but lest we forget when he wasn’t great here.’”
Still, he recognises how the films catapulted his success, adding, “Regret that I did them? No.”
That’s the spirit, Christ– eh, we mean Jamie!
