Jamie’s helping How blues with the January
TV THIRST TRAP FANS, there’s officially a new lustable on the block. If 2020 was the year of Connell’s chain in Normal People (special mention for real-life Paul Mescal’s white short-shorts, which were a ray of pure joy during the first summer of lockdown too), 2022 has a new symbol of sex – namely Jamie Dornan in BBC thriller The Tourist. The Northern Irish star, 39, has set social media aflutter with his brooding, sweaty and downright filthy appearance as a man who has lost his memory in the Australian outback (the show is written by the in-demand Jack and Harry Williams, who were behind the similarly twisty and turny The Missing).
While The Tourist also stars Shalom Brune-franklin and Danielle Macdonald, there have been two more rising stars who have left the show’s viewers gripped: Jamie Dornan’s biceps. After The Tourist’s New Year’s Day debut, social media was awash with praise for the series and odes to Jamie’s limbs. ‘Jamie Dornan’s biceps should be listed in the credits!’ said one. ‘The Tourist is gripping, exciting and powerful. Much like Jamie Dornan’s biceps!’ another gushed. You get the picture.
We saw those biceps on Christmas Day on Instagram too, when Jamie gifted the world a thirsty clip of him running into the freezing Irish sea in his pants because he forgot his togs – absolute hero.
While we fancied him even as a serial killer in The Fall, appreciated his work as Christian Grey in Fifty Shades, it feels like we’re just getting to know Mr Dornan’s more fun side. His other Insta posts are adorable (singing as Kermit the Frog to promote a film; a video of his children shouting, ‘Shh, Daddy!’ as he sings White Christmas). His sense of humour went mainstream in 2021 with Kristen Wiig comedy Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar (he can really sing! He dances! He’s actually a hoot!), after more serious, brooding roles – and for that, we are all thankful.
Having a crush on Jamie Dornan is nothing new, of course – he’s been on our radar since the early-aughts, when he dated a post-bend It Like Beckham Keira Knightley after he found fame on reality modelling show Model Behaviour. He’s been married to composer and musician Amelia Warner since 2013, the couple have three daughters together and they live in the Cotswolds.
And biceps aside, 2022 looks set to be Jamie’s year. As well as The Tourist, he is also in new film Belfast, a semiautobiographical comedy-drama written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, which is already getting huge Oscar buzz. Jamie feels ready for his new chapter. He said recently, ‘I am going to be 40 very soon; it gives you perspective, doesn’t it? I am not afraid of that any more. I’m not someone with a five-year plan, but if my twenties were about beginning this career, modelling, the start of acting, and my thirties were about establishing myself, then I want my forties to be about building something that will last.’ We’re with you all the way, Jamie.