Don't expect to see Fifty Shades of Grey star James Dornan in a Marvel movie anytime soon
His time in the spotlight taught the actor a valuable lesson
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Before he was Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan was best known for playing a serial killer in The Fall. It was a role that earned him critical acclaim but being cast in the first of Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Fifty Shades movies gave a huge boost to the model-turned-actor’s profile, making him a household name almost overnight. Turns out, Dornan didn’t want any of it.
While talking to BBC’s Desert Island Discs recently, Dornan explained how the harsh criticism of the film had him retreating to the director’s country home with his family to “shut [himself] off from the world a bit.” Unfortunately, his troubles with the spotlight were only beginning – though Fifty Shades of Grey was almost universally panned by critics, it was a box office smash. Two sequels were immediately greenlit, which Dornan was contractually obligated to star in.
His experience with the Fifty Shades films and the subsequent fallout from them seems to have had an impact on what kind of projects Dornan has taken on in the subsequent years. “There’s never going to be anything like Fifty Shades again,” he explained to the Independent in December. “It felt very much like its own thing, particularly because it focused in and around sex. But there are obviously other jobs that bring insane scrutiny, like superhero stuff, or f***ing James Bond – any of that stuff. I’ve done pretty well to avoid that sort of s*** so far.”
It doesn’t sound like we can expect to see Dornan suit up for a Marvel or DC movie anytime soon, though that doesn’t mean he isn’t keeping plenty busy. Last year we saw him in the third Hercule Poirot film, A Haunting in Venice, while the second season of The Tourist has just finished airing on the BBC. It is a bit of a shame, really, because we could definitely see him donning the iconic James Bond tux in a future adventure.
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