Hi everyone and thank you for tuning into the 419th episode of Awards Chatter, the Hollywood

reporters awards podcast on the host Scott Feinberg and my guest today is an actor who is

most widely known for playing the BDSM obsessed businessman Christian Gray in the much

malign 50-shage trilogy of films adapted from the best-selling novels of EL James, but who,

before, during and after that chapter of his life, has also done outstanding work in lower profile

but very acclaimed projects on screens big and small, most notably Alan Cubbett's TV series The

Fall and Kenneth Branagh's film Belfast. In the latter, which is now in theaters, he plays the

patriarch of a family modeled on Branagh's own, and to the surprise of people who know him only

as a guy surrounded by whips and chains, his performance is very much in contention for a

best supporting actor Oscar, Jamie Dornan. Over the course of our conversation the 39-year-old

and I discussed the family tragedy that occurred when he was just 16 and sent him into a funk

from which he only emerged after landing work as a model, why acting eventually displaced

modeling as his primary pursuit, why he pursued the part in 50 shades even though he knew it and

he would likely come in for a critical drumming, and whether his involvement with it has opened

or closed more doors for him, why Belfast is a tribute to not only Branagh's hometown and

father, but his own as well, plus much more, and so without further ado, let's go to that conversation.

All right, Jamie, thank you so much for doing the podcast. How are you? Where are you in the world

at the moment? Thank you. I'm excited to be on here. I'm in the UK. I am in at home.

You know, we live in the countryside a couple of yards outside London, and I'm home

good at Ireland tomorrow for Christmas with my family. And I've just about made that happen because

I had bloody COVID. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so I've only just got out of isolation about four days ago

or something. So the whole family, we all had it. So we had to isolate, and you know, it wasn't

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