Fifty Shades of Jamie Dornan (12 page)

Whether Jamie wanted to or not, though, his modelling career was now a serious business and so lucrative that he had to make it a priority; preserving his good looks and keeping his physique toned was essential to keeping clients happy. Much to the astonishment of many colleagues, he openly admitted that he loathed going to the gym and had no fitness regime to speak of. Begrudgingly, Jamie had to start adopting a series of tried and tested exercise workouts to keep himself trim, which he squeezed in during quiet spells while on shoot. ‘There’s a lot of hanging around so I use any downtime to work on my arms and core with variations on press-ups and crunches,’ he told
Men’s Health
magazine soon after the Calvin Klein campaign. ‘It really is about press-ups every day. I’ll aim to do about fifty in the morning and loads more throughout the day.’

Nevertheless, the heart-throb model still had an appetite for high-calorie meals and junk food, including BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwiches and an ongoing penchant for hamburgers and fries. ‘I love a dirty burger,’ he admitted, ‘the
kind where the ketchup and mayonnaise goes all over your face. That and a lot of ale. I don’t watch what I eat, I don’t understand how guys can do it. Food is so good, and if you feel bad about what you eat, go out for a run. I am obsessed with burgers as soon as I check in somewhere it’s “I’ll have a bacon cheeseburger with fries”, and I won’t talk to anybody until I’m satisfied and I’ve eaten the burger and then only then will I call them up and say “right, let’s meet up!”’

He clearly wasn’t shy about his ‘non-diet’ diet and his rider for one magazine photo shoot included ‘one bacon sandwich, one British Roast Chicken on wholemeal, one King prawn and smoked salmon baguette, a bottle of water and a Coke to wash it down with’.

There was no time for wearing kid gloves in Jamie’s life – he wasn’t going to be precious about preserving his good looks; life was for living, as his mother and father’s cancer battles had taught him. Wild nights out drinking with his mates, surfing and some extreme ski holidays were all the order of the day, as nothing was going to stop Jamie from having a good time. ‘Work hard, play hard’ had clearly become something of a mantra for him.

However, a taste of the good life came at a cost on one snowbound mountain break when he suffered a horrendous injury in a terrifying skiing accident. An accomplished skier, Jamie was out on the mountainside when he lost control and smashed into the ice. Doubled-up in excruciating pain, hospital medics discovered that he had shattered his shoulder. Treatment was complicated and after enduring an astonishing four years of
constant pain, Jamie went through a host of therapies to fix the broken bones, including two operations using keyhole surgery.

Jamie had always been insecure about his looks; he didn’t understand why the fashion industry thought he was so attractive and now lifting weights and doing push-ups left him in agony. Keeping fit was one way in which Jamie could take control of the way he looked and, for once, he would have liked nothing better than to hit the gym. ‘I have massive insecurities about how I look and will do for the rest of my life,’ he said. ‘I’m amazed if people are happy in their own skin. I see someone and I think, “F**k him, look at him, he’s got way better arms than me.”’

Even though he was one of the best-looking men in the public eye – and his position in
Cosmopolitan
’s Top 10 hunks proved this point – Jamie couldn’t understand how people could end up so vain, spending hours in front of the mirror preening. It just wasn’t in his make-up. ‘I’ve never understood that “my body is a temple s**t” although mine does help to pay the mortgage,’ he said some years later.

There was further frustration for Jamie, as he couldn’t stand it when people assumed that he was unintelligent and uneducated solely because of the way he looked and his job as a male model. It had reached a stage by then where his notoriety was affording him an outstanding quality of living but Jamie was becoming fed up with the price he had to pay for that: being treated like something of a village idiot. Nothing could have been further from the truth and the prejudices he faced almost daily were clearly making him anxious. ‘People assume you’re stupid
enough as it is. Then you take your shirt off and they’re like, “He must be an idiot.” Seriously, people approach me and you can see it in their eyes. They speak to you very s-l-o-w-l-y. They’re like: “Let’s talk about grease and oil on your body. And aftershave. And your grooming technique.” I understand. I mean, if I saw a picture of me, I’d probably be the same.’

The reality is that he was a privately educated doctor’s son, who adored reading, playing golf, going to the theatre and skiing with his well-heeled pals. He had very few links with those inside the fashion industry, except to turn up to a photo shoot or promo – both of which were so brief that there was no time to make any firm friends. ‘I don’t really have any model friends; I have people that I kind of know but we don’t go out and talk about fashion over like an ale,’ he laughed during an interview with Nylon TV. ‘It’s not really a profession. Some people actually say they are just a model but what do you actually do? It takes up so little of your time.’

Going on to speak about where he’d really like to be, he added, ‘Every great character has already been played and played really well so you’re kind of waiting for that remix where they’re going to recast it with some skinny Irish guy – like Steve McQueen say.’ Jamie was clearly desperate for a credible acting career and pronto. The glamorous assignments hadn’t seen him resign himself to a future in modelling but instead had shifted his focus further from fashion to movie roles.

Luckily, and thanks to relentless auditions, the much hankered-for parts had started to trickle his way, even though he wasn’t going to take the easy route. Jamie knew that it would
be all too simple to worm his way into the acting world by going for the roles of ‘lover’ or ‘boyfriend’, for which his career as male supermodel had already perfectly typecast him.

Unsurprisingly, nearly a decade in the fashion industry had ensured that he was fed up of playing the handsome co-star in various fashion campaigns, and being a piece of on-screen eye candy was not on his agenda. ‘I’m not going to take my shirt off every time I’m in front of the camera. It’s very accessible. Google “Jamie Dornan Torso” and there you are. I’ve done it enough that I really don’t see how it’s interesting anymore.’

Thankfully, and much to his relief, he finally secured the movie role he’d been waiting for – that of a scruffy tramp. Jamie’s agent had called to say that after a surprisingly successful audition, he had won a part in small-scale British independent movie
Shadows in the Sun
, and it didn’t require him to look pretty. Instead, the role was an interesting one. Jamie was to play Joe, a troubled man who lives like a vagrant but is looking after an elderly widow living in a remote house on the Norfolk coast, by bringing her cannabis to ease the pain of an illness.

It was just the break he’d been looking for, as it was completely different from the sexy roles he’d been up for previously. Set in the 1960s, the part was gritty, as Joe was a mysterious loner who was sleeping rough on the beach inside an old shipwreck. Jamie was to grow a scruffy beard for the role – a breath of fresh air for the model who usually spent hours with a team of stylists making sure that he looked immaculate for the camera. ‘It was an amazing film to be part of. It’s a very quiet little film, it’s not going to create too much of a stir. It’s set at the end of the sixties
and I was able to grow a big beard for the part which I enjoyed having. I kinda miss it. I would like to grow it back again but I’m not allowed because of Calvin unfortunately.’

But best of all, the movie afforded him the unique opportunity to perform opposite eighty-year-old acting legend Jean Simmons. One of Hollywood’s brightest actresses of the 1950s, Jean’s career spanned decades and saw her act alongside Hollywood greats Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Victor Mature and Marlon Brando. The gentle family drama was to mark her return to the big screen and was sadly to be her last ever film. Working so intimately with Jean was a dream come true for Jamie; while clearly being star-struck on meeting the legendary actress, he quickly felt at ease with her, as her down-to-earth nature meant that they soon managed to form a firm friendship. They became so fond of each other, with Jamie realising he had much to learn from the star, that they kept in touch after filming finished. ‘I’m not sure what they were expecting, some Diva from Sunset Boulevard perhaps,’ said the two-time Oscar nominee, who grew up in Cricklewood in Essex before moving to Hollywood. ‘I like to think I’ve always kept a sense of reality. I think that’s down to my family and especially my brother whose attitude about me was always, “Oh good, the kid is working”,’ Jean said of her time on the film.

Jamie found the stories that she regaled to him and his co-star James Wilby deeply fascinating, particularly those of legendary actor Marlon Brando – one of his all-time heroes. ‘In a perfect world I would play Stanley in [Tennessee Williams’s play]
A Streetcar Named Desire,
’ Jamie had once said of his dream role,
‘but that can’t be touched; Brando did it and I don’t think they should ever re-do
A Streetcar Named Desire
.’

Working alongside one of Brando’s contemporaries left him ever more certain that a career in the movie industry was for him. ‘Jean was, what, seventy-nine when I worked with her? And when I think of all the films she was in, and how thoughtful and generous she was,’ he said. ‘I have to be careful here, because I was almost gonna tear up. She started as a kid. She had so many great stories. She worked with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra – in the same movie! I’m sure she got sick of me asking her about that. She told me one of her first jobs was as Vivien Leigh’s stunt double. They rolled her up in a carpet and threw her into a pool for a scene where Vivien was to be drowned. She said she stayed underwater for what to her seemed like forever, but when she came up, she knew it was only a few seconds. She laughed about it, then she went from that to starring in
Spartacus
[1960]!’

The movie in which Jamie and Jean were now starring hinted at a time-defying romance between them despite the age gap of fifty-five years, which amused rather than embarrassed the model-turned-actor. ‘I did fall a bit in love with her actually,’ he admitted to the
Evening
Standard
newspaper some years later.

Even after filming ended, the unlikely pals vowed to stay in touch and Jamie went for lunch at her home in Santa Monica several times before her death in January 2010, a year after the movie’s release. ‘She was one of my favourite people in the world,’ he added, ‘and it was a huge loss when she slipped away.
Shadows in the Sun
was her last film and she was the most incredible person. I kept in touch with Jean – she was hilarious,
and had the spirit of a twenty-one-year-old right up to her final days.’

In so many ways working on the film had made a lasting impression on the young starlet and when it got a thumbsup at its premiere at the Dinard British Film Festival, he was both thrilled and relieved. Its release in UK cinemas, however, brought moderate success and reviews were varied. ‘
Shadows in the Sun
unfurls as quietly as a mouse and could be accused of lacking urgency and bite. But it is well played, particularly by Simmons who still has the charisma of a star turn,’ a write-up in the
Evening Standard
newspaper read.

Keen to keep up the momentum and wanting as much experience as possible, Jamie also agreed to appear in two shorts. Supporting young director Will Garthwaite with his 2009 slice-of-life
Nice to Meet You
, Jamie agreed to play a man being chased by police who begs a woman to hide him after jumping into her back garden. She agrees and the sexual chemistry between them is obvious, even when he finds himself at the centre of a love triangle after sleeping with her daughter. Starring Sting’s wife Trudie Styler and her real-life daughter Mickey, the twenty-minute film, which sees the woman take revenge by calling in the police to arrest him, was less an example of Jamie’s acting abilities and more an illustration of the society crowd he was mixing with at the time. It clearly wasn’t the proudest entry on his acting CV and when years later a journalist asked him about his role in the film, he said incredulously, ‘I can’t believe you watched that!’

In a similar vein, the wannabe Hollywood star played the lead
role in an award-winning short from the 2009 London Film Festival,
X Returns.
Although the twenty-minute caper attracted little long-term attention, it did at least give Jamie the chance to hone his acting skills and star alongside beautiful
Neighbours
soap star Holly Valance. A film critic noted at the time, ‘Well filmed but it seemed more like a trailer for a feature film than a short in itself. Still, how can one not enjoy anything starring Holly Valance?’

Jamie had clearly been welcomed into the London TV and film crowd, and was being invited to a host of events and red carpet premieres in the broadcast calendar. One outing at the 2009 BAFTA awards party caused a stir amongst the gossip pages of the British press when he was seen chatting up
Harry Potter
star Emma Watson. Friends of the pair claimed the ‘face of Dior’ was determined to woo his way into the teenage actress’s affections. ‘Emma has no shortage of admirers and Jamie is one of them,’ a friend told the
Sunday Mirror
newspaper the following week. ‘She’s a bit of a romantic so he’s had to do it the old fashioned way and lavish her with chocolates and flowers […] He isn’t used to girls saying “no” to him so he will keep trying. When he meets her at the next showbiz bash he will try again […] Last time all the guys were making moves on Emma so Jamie knows he has to be a bit quicker.’

Meanwhile, his modelling career remained a success and being the on-going face of Calvin Klein was starting to become a label he couldn’t get rid of, even when he might have wanted to most. ‘I potentially did too much modelling – it’s detrimental. Do enough big, high profile stuff and it’s not just, “He got his
photograph taken”. You become part of a brand. With Calvin Klein that was me. So there’s a danger that it’s in too many people’s psyches. I think I’m going to be constantly battling that label,’ he explained.