After appearing in successful films like “Belfast” and “A Haunting in Venice,” as well as directing the Netflix series “The Tourist,” Jamie Dornan has come much farther from “50 Shades of Grey.” However, the actor is still aware of the derision he faced for playing the lead in the ill-fated film versions of best-selling sexual literature by E.L. James.
During a recent interview on the BBC 4 radio program “Desert Island Discs,” actor Jamie Dornan talks candidly about the first lash of adverse press that followed the release of Sam Taylor-Johnson’s first “50 Shades of Grey” movie in 2015. He clarified that considering his previous acting accomplishments, the movie’s negative reviews hurt him, so he decided to conceal himself in Taylor-Johnson’s rural house until the negative publicity subsided.
I think I hid,” Dornan stated. “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. We 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 little bit.” Dornan continued by saying that the fact that he would have to play Christian Grey twice more for the movie to be financially successful made him feel even more disappointed with it. “It made so much money so like… films two and three were greenlit overnight,” Dornan said. “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.”
