14 DAY TRIAL // Jamie Dornan has been trying to make an acting career happen for a very long time and, as per his own words, he had almost lost all hope when he got the call back from the producers on “Fifty Shades of Grey,” telling him that he’d replace Charlie Hunnam as the lead, as he had just backed out of the project.
This will be his launching pad, without a doubt: even if the film will be trashed by critics (which it probably will be, considering its source material, the E.L. James trilogy of adult-oriented novels), it will still translate into huge exposure for him.
Fans are dying to see him as Christian Grey and to see his story told in 3 or maybe 4 different movies. So, even if this project turns out to be a critical bust, it will still have kept Jamie working for years to come.
Yet, with all this, he still comes across as very unhappy with his fate, almost as if he’s doing it against his will.
“There are a couple of classic knots I know now, and I’ve put them to good use far too many times recently. In fact I’d like to do a job where I don’t have to tie women to beds,” Dornan says in a new interview with The Guardian, on the topic of playing men who tie up women in both “Fifty” and “The Fall.”
“The whole thing’s ridiculous,” he continues, speaking of the movie. “It’s just all a bit silly the way it works. I think I could lose my mind.”
Comparisons to Robert Pattinson and some of the things he said during the promo tour for “The Twilight Saga” do spring to mind though, to Pattinson’s credit, he held back from saying negative things about his franchise until the very end. Then too, all he’d say was that he felt relieved to be free of a multi-year contract and especially of the fan and media frenzy that used to follow him around wherever he went.
Dornan, on the other hand, is just getting started. His acting credits are few yet and the bulk of his resume is represented by his being an underwear model for CK, which he seems to resent too. The first installment from “Fifty” isn’t even out yet so he might want to tone down on the negativity a bit.
It could be that he’s just misunderstood or doesn’t have a way around words when he wants to express certain feelings he might have about the franchise, so that’s why he comes across as almost ungrateful for the chance he’s been given. If that’s the case, he might want to hone his PR skills because the road ahead of him is long and bumpy: the first “Fifty Shades” movie doesn’t come out until February 2015.