Jamie Dornan Interview With RED MAGAZINE
I recently came across this article in the RED MAGAZINE from last year. I dont think Jamie even knew about Fifty Shades of Grey yet. He was busy with his TV show The Fall with Gillian Anderson. I loved the photos of the two of them and her insights about their show together.The photos are fun and not in character for their show at all. Love his bare feet. Here are some excerpts from the interview. You can read the full interview on their website Red Magazine online.
Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan
Broadchurch, who? The Fall is our new TV obsession. Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan’s police officer/serial killer dynamic is the most thrilling thing on screens this summer. We’re hooked.
Gillian Anderson is a great actress. She must be, because there is absolutely no way she could possibly be as calm and collected as she appears to be, while being picked up and swung around by a man so incredibly handsome, it is almost absurd. If she is having the same teenage palpitations as the rest of the Red photoshoot crew in her co-star Jamie Dornan’s presence, then for God’s sake, someone give this woman an Oscar because, honestly, you would never know.
It is late on a Monday afternoon, and Anderson (who needs no introduction to anyone who owned a television in the 1990s) and Dornan (who you might need to Google but, when you see the Calvin Klein shots from his modelling days, all oiled and astride Eva Mendes, you won’t regret the task) are here to talk about The Fall
‘You do read so much shit,’ Dornan laughs, post-shoot, of the roles he has been offered in the past. ‘I don’t know if I particularly get sent more than other people, and some of that might have to do with the fact that I modelled, but very often I get pushed towards a similar type of role. Usually it’s the character that, two pages before the end, kisses a girl and that’s that. It’s so rare that a character this good would even be an option for me. I didn’t think I’d have a chance in hell of playing Spector. I’ve never been on British television before, so for my first thing to be something as good as this…’
‘Yeah, they made you jump through some hoops,’ Anderson adds, from her seat next to him on a huge leather sofa. ‘But I think it was pretty clear from the beginning that you were the man for the job. I just think it was a matter of convincing the powers that be. I’ve been in the same situation before, with people fighting my corner, but having to convince studios that you’re the one – it takes some effort.’
For Dornan, 31, The Fall is something of a breakthrough. After years of modelling, with Calvin Klein billboards plastered across every major city in the world, and campaigns for Asprey, where he met one-time girlfriend Keira Knightley, convincing people to take him seriously as an actor has been no easy ride. His biggest role to date has been in the US series Once Upon A Time, but British roles have been trickier to secure for the Northern Irish actor.
‘Modelling doesn’t hold you back in LA at all,’ he says, with characteristic honesty. ‘In LA, they don’t think that because you leant against walls and looked depressed while someone took your photograph, it means you can’t act. In the UK, there’s a massive stigma attached to it. You couldn’t possibly have had your photograph taken for a living and act.’
But Scully is a really fucking interesting character, in a massive show, and you’re really impressive in it,’ replies Dornan, emphatically. ‘So that’s nine years of constantly being impressive as an actress, whereas I’ve got nine years of leaning against walls – and it treated me very well, but it was almost to my detriment as an actor.’
‘For me, it was a very different experience,’ says Dornan. ‘My dad’s there, some of my best friends in the world are there. I had an apartment in the middle of town for three months. And I’ve never actually lived in Belfast because I grew up just outside, so I experienced the city on a different level, waking up and going to get coffee and read the papers on my day off. I’d never done that, so I just loved it. And it’s nice to not have to repeat yourself, as well, in terms of your accent!’
With easy laughter, and gentle teasing, it’s obvious that pairing these two together was a genius move. They chat happily about Dornan’s upcoming wedding to singer Amelia Warner (they marry four days after our shoot), the experienced, worldly-wise actress, and her younger, greener co-star.
The self-doubt that each actor feels, I can quite confidently say, will not translate to audiences. As a serial killer by night and loving family man by day, Dornan is compelling, terrifying and brilliant, while Anderson sets the bar high for a new breed of strong female TV characters.
