Jamie Dornan Hid From The Scathing Reviews Of His ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Role

Bruce Haring
·2-min read

He could dish it out in the movie, but apparently couldn’t take it in real life.

Jamie Dornan said on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs that he and his wife shut themselves off from the world in a bid to escape the arrows which greeted his film Fifty Shades of Grey’s release in 2015.

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Fifty Shades of Grey explores the sadomasochistic relationship between college graduate Anastasia Ana Steele, played by Dakota Johnson, and the tycoon Christian Grey, played by Dornan.

“I think I hid,” Dornan says of the first film. “I am coming off the back of career altering reviews for The Fall to just ridicule, almost.”

Sanctuary was found at the country home of the film’s director, Sam Taylor-Johnson, and her actor husband, Aaron.

“They let us have their place in the country and we sort of hid there for a while and just shut ourselves from the world a bit and then sort of came out the other side.”

Dornan went on to make two more films in the series.

“It [the film] made so much money that two or three were like greenlit overnight. It was a strange thing, because then you are like, there is a bit of ridicule here and I’m now contractually doing two more of them and knowing that there would be more of that damnation to come.”

Dornan went on to to win rave reviews for his starring roles in Belfast and The Tourist. But he said he had no regrets about making Fifty Shades of Grey, even though he was constantly being reminded of its failings.

“I have just had very glowing reviews for recent work and there wouldn’t be many of them that don’t mention Fifty Shades in them. A lot of reviews are like, ‘He’s great, but lest we forget when he wasn’t great…’ But regrets that I did them, no.”

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