55 Facts About Jamie Dornan

1.

James Peter Maxwell Dornan is an actor, model, and musician from Northern Ireland.

2.

Jamie Dornan began acting in 2006, and earned international recognition for playing Sheriff Graham Humbert in the series Once Upon a Time and serial killer Paul Spector in the crime drama series The Fall.

3.

Jamie Dornan was born in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, and grew up in the suburbs of Belfast.

4.

Jamie Dornan has two older sisters: Liesa, who works for Disney in London, and Jessica, a fashion designer based in Falmouth, Cornwall, England.

5.

Jamie Dornan is a first cousin, twice removed, of actress Greer Garson.

6.

Jamie Dornan attended and boarded at Methodist College Belfast, where he played rugby and participated in the drama department.

7.

Jamie Dornan played Baby Face in Bugsy Malone and the milkman in Blood Brothers during school productions.

8.

Jamie Dornan was a member of Belfast's youth amateur drama group, Holywood Players and participated in Ballymoney's Drama Festival with this group on several occasions.

9.

Jamie Dornan attended Teesside University but dropped out and moved to London in 2002 to train as an actor, but never applied to drama school.

10.

Jamie Dornan worked in a pub in Knightsbridge for six months until he embarked on his modelling career.

11.

Jamie Dornan performed in the folk band Sons of Jim until it disbanded in 2008.

12.

Jamie Dornan founded the band with his schoolmate David Alexander and formed their own record label Doorstep Records under which they published their songs "Fairytale" and "My Burning Sun".

13.

Jamie Dornan was not keen to pursue modelling as a career but was persuaded by his step mother and sisters.

14.

Jamie Dornan was eliminated but signed a modelling contract with Select Model Management.

15.

Jamie Dornan then modelled for Aquascutum, Hugo Boss, and Armani.

16.

Jamie Dornan appeared as a judge in Calvin Klein's model hunt competition, 'Nine countries, nine men, one winner' that year.

17.

Jamie Dornan was ranked 3rd and 15th on GQ's 50 best dressed British men list respectively in 2015 and 2016.

18.

Jamie Dornan never participated in ramp walks because of his unconventional style of walking.

19.

Jamie Dornan's first acting role in a film was as Count Axel Fersen in the Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette.

20.

Jamie Dornan struggled with auditions and casting agents who treated him only as a model, but he had always wanted to act and so, auditioned in the pilot season in Los Angeles.

21.

Jamie Dornan went to Los Angeles with a view to building an acting career in comedy, which eventually never happened.

22.

Jamie Dornan had written a comic blog for Funny or Die that did not get published.

23.

Jamie Dornan returned as the Huntsman for the season finale "A Land Without Magic", and later as Graham for the season two episode "Welcome to Storybrooke" in its flashback segment.

24.

Jamie Dornan starred alongside Gillian Anderson in the Northern Irish drama series The Fall, playing Paul Spector, a serial killer terrorising Belfast.

25.

Jamie Dornan initially auditioned for the role of a police officer, but he was later called upon to audition for the lead role, for which he was eventually selected.

26.

Jamie Dornan read books about serial killers and watched interviews of Ted Bundy to get an understanding of the mindset of his character, and stalked a woman in his preparation for the role.

27.

Jamie Dornan has said The Fall marked a turning point in his career.

28.

Jamie Dornan later appeared in Flying Home, a romantic drama film and New Worlds, a historical drama series.

29.

On 23 October 2013, Jamie Dornan was cast as Christian Grey in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, replacing Charlie Hunnam.

30.

Jamie Dornan reprised his role in the second and third installments of the Fifty Shades film franchise, Fifty Shades Darker, released in 2017, and Fifty Shades Freed, released in 2018.

31.

Jamie Dornan later stated that initially he was reluctant about his involvement in the project and knew the franchise would not be treated well by critics.

32.

In 2016, Jamie Dornan starred as Commandant Pat Quinlan, who led the Irish UN force during The Siege of Jadotville, in Netflix's war film The Siege of Jadotville.

33.

Jamie Dornan was sent to a boot camp in South Africa with the rest of the cast to train for the film.

34.

Rupert Hawksley of The Daily Telegraph felt that he made a decent fist of portraying Kubis and said: "Nazi nail-biter Anthropoid shows Jamie Dornan has many more than 50 shades".

35.

Jamie Dornan appeared in a Miramax film titled The 9th Life of Louis Drax, a supernatural thriller based on a book of the same name, in 2016.

36.

In 2018, Jamie Dornan co-starred alongside Peter Dinklage, as a journalist Danny Tate, in the HBO television film My Dinner with Herve, written and directed by Sacha Gervasi.

37.

Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe said: "The Danny plot is fine - nothing special really, although Jamie Dornan is excellent and manages to bring a good sense of transformation to an underwritten character".

38.

In 2019, Jamie Dornan starred as a paramedic in the science fiction thriller film Synchronic.

39.

Jamie Dornan played the role of an Irish writer in the semi-improvised romantic drama Endings, Beginnings that year.

40.

Jamie Dornan then appeared in two comedy films, Wild Mountain Thyme and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.

41.

Jamie Dornan is not interested in those usual tics that can make up so many colourful, eye-catching parts.

42.

In 2021, Jamie Dornan portrayed a working class father in Kenneth Branagh's drama film Belfast, the character being based on Branagh's father.

43.

Jamie Dornan received nominations for the Golden Globe Award and Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor.

44.

Jamie Dornan has lent his support towards various means and organisations.

45.

Jamie Dornan was the patron of TinyLife, a Northern Ireland charity for premature and vulnerable babies.

46.

In 2018, Jamie Dornan became the patron of the newly established charity Northern Ireland Pancreatic Cancer which was created in partnership with Pancreatic Cancer Action and the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund.

47.

In 2020, Jamie Dornan read a bedtime story as part of Save with Stories to raise funds for Save the Children's Emergency Coronavirus Appeal.

48.

Jamie Dornan appeared in annual fundraising events Red Nose Day by Comic Relief and Children in Need by BBC.

49.

Jamie Dornan has backed emergency campaigns providing help for children's treatment.

50.

In 2003, Jamie Dornan met actress Keira Knightley in an Asprey photoshoot.

51.

In 2010, Jamie Dornan met English actress and singer-songwriter Amelia Warner and they became engaged in 2012, and married in 2013.

52.

Jamie Dornan launched his menswear clothing line 'Eleven Eleven' in 2022.

53.

Jamie Dornan's critically lauded television works are The Fall and Once Upon a Time.

54.

Jamie Dornan is the recipient of two Irish Film and Television Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and a People's Choice Award.

55.

Jamie Dornan has been nominated for a British Academy Television Award and a Golden Globe Award.