JAMIE’S DEEP ROOTS
Fifty Freed Jamie Shades Dornan star on growing up in Northern Ireland and his fears for the future in a time of political turbulence...
THEY might sound the same but Holywood in Co Down is now a world away from the cinema capital where Jamie Dornan’s name is now up in lights.
But the Fifty Shades star has never forgotten his roots and has real concerns about the effects Brexit will have on his beloved Northern Ireland. Jamie grew up in Holywood, Co Down, and was born into a very distinguished family of obstetricians. His mother died when he and his sisters were young and it still pains him to talk about her loss. He is close to his sisters and his father, who all still live in the North. Although he is based in Britain these days for family reasons, Jamie still returns to Belfast regularly.
As someone who grew up during the Troubles, he easily admits how painful the idea of Brexit is to him and those he cares about after nearly two decades of peace. His neutral accent switches back to a Northern one as he passionately hits his stride on the topic of home. ‘I am terrified by Brexit and what it means for all of Ireland, but particularly the North, because I can’t see any solution that benefits Northern Ireland and that breaks my heart, actually,’ he says, shaking his head sadly.
‘There are lots of different and really quite interesting options that will arise on the table from uniting Ireland and totally separating and making it hard. And they should all be given kudos and have their thoughts considered.
‘But I still don’t see how there is an outcome that doesn’t mean unrest again and I find that really troubling. I came from a very middle class background, but there’s no person who grew up in Northern Ireland who is my age, who, despite your background, wasn’t affected by the Troubles.
‘That’s why I think it’s so sad — that Northern Ireland has made such massive leaps and strides to get to relative peace and now, total peace, comparative to where we were in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. To have all of that blown up by something like Brexit, I think would be very hard to deal with.’
HE has strong views too on segregated education from having grown up in such a divided educational and social system. He sees nothing positive from keeping children apart based on which church their family attends.
‘Northern Ireland is divided in quite a massive way,’ he says. ‘The Protestant and Catholic division has been at the epicentre of all the conflict in that part of the country for 35 years. As peaceful as Northern Ireland is, it’s still segregated: there are still areas where Protestants will not live and where Catholics will not live, as much as people on the outside think it’s all hunky dory. It’s not and people are still kept apart.’
He has no optimism this will ever change, particularly with Brexit and the return of border patrols on the near horizon.
‘No, that will never change, I don’t think. I would love it to change, but I don’t think it will,’ he says.
The household he grew up in, although ostensibly Protestant, was not particularly religious and his parents were cultured people who took a keen interest in the arts.
Jamie is grateful he did not go to a Protestant-only school and well aware of how meagre this might sound to someone who is not fluent in understanding the poison of sectarianism.
‘I benefited in a massive way by going to a mixed school in Northern Ireland. In most parts of the world, if you say mixed school, that means boys and girls, but when I say it, it means Catholics and Protestants,’ he says. ‘My school had about 60% Protestants and 40% Catholics, so I just benefited hugely from being in an environment where whichever religion you subscribed to really didn’t mean anything. It makes you resent all that nonsense, that “your God is better than my God” crap.’
These are not subjects you usually hear Jamie talking about. On screen, his smouldering good looks and danger-tinged charm led to him securing one of the film industry’s most raunchy roles, but he could rightly be described as a reluctant pin-up.
Despite making his big breakthrough in Hollywood in the film adaptation of the Fifty Shades of Gray series, the whole palaver surrounding the movie and its fans seems very remote from his real life.
Although like any actor, he’s thrilled at the visibility — not to mention the payday — the role of Christian Gray has given him, it’s pretty clear that he couldn’t be more different from the damaged billionaire he plays in the series adapted from EL James’s hit books. The happily-married father-of-two lives in bucolic rural England with his wife Amelia Warner, a musician.
‘My wild nights out are few and far between now with two kids under the age of four,’ he laughs. ‘In my 20s in London, I never liked going out with a plan and there were lots of nearly surreal nights where you would go out and just stumble around until you found some speakeasy.
‘The night would get sillier and sillier until your body couldn’t take it any more. There would be wild drinking and stuff but I’m not really into the whole stripper scene and stuff — that wouldn’t be part of my wild agenda, I don’t think.’
And, rather than Brexit, Jamie is more likely to be found making the rounds of late night US talk shows dealing with all kinds of excruciating questions about bondage and sex toys, particularly now Fifty Shades Freed is about to hit our screens. He gamely fulfils his end of the bargain, while just ever so slightly hinting that he wouldn’t mind talking about something else for a while. Mostly, one gets the sense that he couldn’t be more different from his on-screen persona.
‘Christian Gray’s life is something I think about daily,’ he admits. ‘He’s in a very, very tiny 1%, comparative to the rest of the world — it’s something we should all be mindful of. One thing I do like about this character is he did give back lots, which many people in his position do not do. Of course there are amazing people who do give a lot back, like Bill Gates, who seems to be constantly giving and that’s something I’m very mindful of.
‘It’s tricky trying to make someone like him relatable, but you have to try to draw on the human aspect of it so it can resonate with the audience.
‘The fans are very opinionated and passionate and there are lots of lines in the book that are fan favourites and my job and Dakota’s was to try to ignore all that and just stand there and tell the truth as best we can.’
His father was involved in amateur dramatics and it is from here and from his great aunt Greer Garson that his acting chops derive. A successful model for Calvin Klein and
the like, he also dated actress Keira Knightley many moons ago.
‘I definitely didn’t want to be an actor when I was a kid,’ he says. ‘Even when I started acting, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be an actor. It wasn’t until I did The Fall that I went, ‘Oh, I actually want to do this’ and it gave me a taste for taking acting more seriously. I wouldn’t change anything in terms of my early 20s, mucking around, being in a band, getting paid to have your photograph taken. It was all sort of a big game and I liked the noncommittal element of it. That’s all changed now because I feel very committed to being an actor and a husband and a father.
‘A lot of my friends that I grew up with in Belfast knew exactly what they wanted to do and they planned for that accordingly — they went to uni and did that course because it would land them that job. And now, they all work in jobs they had planned to do and none of them are happy! So, I kind of feel that my approach was better.’
Jamie shares the passion for golf of his fellow northerner Rory McIlroy and when we meet he has just returned from a Los Angeles golf course where he went early to still his nerves before facing into interviews.
‘I’m a great admirer of Rory’s and all he has achieved,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t be prouder of him as a fellow Northerner but he has nothing to worry about me coming to steal his crown. My passion for golf is not matched by any great skill that would be a cause of any sleeplessness for him!’
He slips in a joke about how instead of having a red room in his house like Christian Gray, he has a green room, lest anyone think he is living the character. ‘I am making myself a wee office in my house at the moment and I was picking colours,’ he reveals.
‘There was a red I really liked and I was going to just have one wall of it. And the guy who is the decorator said, ‘Are you sure you want to have a red colour, given those movies?’ Until he said it, it hadn’t crossed my mind. I thought I was just picking a nice shade of red. So I chose something green instead. We have no need for a red room!’
Does he ever worry about his kids seeing the Fifty Shades films when they’re older?
‘I will just say to them, ‘Yeah, I did those films before I had grey hair’ and they are going to know that as an actor, I am going to do all kinds of weird and wonderful roles for different reasons.
‘I guess at times, it may be embarrassing for them that Daddy did that, but I don’t waste my life worrying about s**t like that, to be honest.’