Following brief stints as a musician, a rugby player, and an amateur actor, he dropped out of college and became a wildly successful model, dubbed "the golden torso" by The New York Times. "THERE'S NO ACTOR IN THE WORLD WHO COULD LIVE UP TO THAT."ĭornan was born in suburban Belfast in 1982, his father a prominent obstetrician, his mother a nurse who died of pancreatic cancer when he was 16. I think people will be surprised to see what he's capable of." But if I need him to be dark and dangerous, he's dark and dangerous.
If he needs to be an adorable puppy, he's an adorable puppy.
JAMIE DORNAN FIFTY SHADES OF GREY FULL
"He can do the full range of darkness and vulnerability. "As an actor, he's incredibly versatile and skilled," Taylor-Wood says. 'FIFTY SHADES OF GREY' TRAILER DISILLUSIONS MASOCHISTIC FANS, proclaimed one headline.īut the Grey groupies need to put on their big-girl panties.
JAMIE DORNAN FIFTY SHADES OF GREY SERIES
Even the release of a steamy trailer failed to placate the diehards, who feared the baby-faced Dornan-a former Calvin Klein underwear model whose credits include the ABC fairy-tale series Once Upon a Time-was too adorable to truss anyone up. The hashtag #NotM圜hristian started trending on Twitter.
You had to narrow down the possibilities to, maybe, three people in the world." And so when Charlie Hunnam, the filmmakers' first choice for Christian, dropped out of the project shortly after he was cast and was replaced by Dornan, Fifty Shades fans yowled like a gaggle of spanked coeds. On the page, you're looking at a total fantasy figure. "As you can imagine, casting Christian Grey felt near impossible," says Sam Taylor-Wood, the glamorous, plummy-voiced English director who is helming the film adaptation of E. We're having lunch in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.īut still. And we're not in a wooden chalet in the middle of a forest. It's Jamie Dornan, the 32-year-old Irish actor who plays the wayward billionaire in the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey movie. He looks up at me, his eyes full of some unfathomable question. I gasp and flush scarlet as he piles Manchego and chorizo on crusty bread. His long-fingered hands reach for the cheese plate. What's happening? What's he going to do now? His gaze is steely, like molten gray fire. Christian Grey is sitting across from me.