Fifty Shades of Jamie Dornan (17 page)

The truth was that the kinky antics between powerful businessman Christian and demure student Anastasia were ‘every fantasy I’d ever had’, the writer claimed, which had been rolled into one steamy and powerfully provocative novel.

Having achieved such unexpected success with the trilogy, the last thing E.L. James wanted was to see the chemistry and sizzling sexual desire between the two main protagonists get lost in translation from page to the big screen. She wanted and needed to ensure that every aspect of their intimate and somewhat debauched relationship was projected flawlessly. ‘This is my midlife crisis, all my fantasies out there, it’s all in that book. I was a woman obsessed for two years I was writing it everywhere, at home, on the train.

‘I’m stunned at how popular it is,’ she told America’s
Today
programme, adding that she wasn’t a ‘great writer’ and had only penned it as a hobby. Although critics were branding it ‘mummy porn’, it was a runaway success, translated into fifty-one different languages and winning rave reviews from fans around the world. ‘It makes you squirm in your seat,’ a businesswoman in
her twenties admitted to a TV show. ‘Women who are reading it say they are having more sex with their husbands,’ a therapist revealed, while a mother-of-three told one of the hundreds of internet forums that had sprung up about the book, ‘it definitely, for lack of a better word, gets you going.’

It was evidently hugely important to James to ‘get it right’. ‘This is huge. There is this passionate fandom, we need to get this right for them,’ she explained. Moreover,
Fifty Shades of Grey
was also quickly becoming a multimillion-pound brand which would bring with it a range of spin-off merchandise, including a CD of music the author wrote the story to, bottles of wine, T-shirts with slogans from the book and sex toys such as the infamous silver pleasure balls, handcuffs and crops, as immortalised in the series.

News of the forthcoming
Fifty Shades
movie, meanwhile, had spread like wildfire across Hollywood, sparking a feeding frenzy within all areas of production. Top producers such as Brian Grazer, Adam Shankman, Scott Stuber, Doug and Lucy Wick, and Stacy Cramer had all reportedly been courting James and her agent Valerie Hoskins. It was important that E.L. James had the perfect team and, along with the bigwigs at Universal and Focus, she decided to hire Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti, producers of
The Social Network
for which they won a Best Picture Oscar nomination. ‘At its core,
Fifty Shades of Grey
is a complex love story, requiring a delicate and sophisticated hand to bring it to the big screen,’ said Universal co-chairman Donna Langley in a statement. ‘Mike and Dana’s credits more than exemplify what we need in creative partners, and we’re
glad to have them as part of our team.’ Both producers had been known for their work on book adaptations. As well as their collaboration with producer Scott Rudin on the 2010 drama
The Social Network
– based on the creators of Facebook and adapted from the non-fiction book
The Accidental Billionaires
– De Luca had also produced 2011 hit baseball movie
Moneyball
, based on the book
Moneyball: The Art of Winning.

The next job was to hire a director along with a stellar cast, most importantly securing the right Christian Grey. Finding someone able to fill the criteria needed was going to be tough, chiefly because every reader – all 100 million of them – had created in their mind a very exact image of what the sadistic, controlling billionaire looked like. Few casting agents could have experienced that kind of pressure before.

The first description of the powerful businessman in the novel said it all: ‘This Christian Grey is the richest, most elusive, most enigmatic bachelor in Washington State.’ As if that wasn’t a big enough ask, the right man for the job would also have to plausibly fit the description: ‘the epitome of male beauty, breathtaking.’ The domineering heart-throb was exactly what all women secretly wanted, as the author claimed, and the actor would have to be able to convincingly fulfill that fantasy. ‘I think in their fantasies that’s what women desire, in real life it’s something very different, it’s probably someone who can do the dishes. [He is rich and domineering] because that’s really attractive on paper. You’re in charge of your job, you’re in charge of your house, your children, getting them food on the table, you’re doing this all of the time and it would be nice for someone
else to just be in charge for a bit,’ she explained to America’s
Today
programme.

Film agents were desperately looking through their books, trying to find the winning actor they could put forward for this most coveted of roles and amongst them was Jamie Dornan. Still feeling like ‘the skinny boy at school’, he never expected to land the job – that would, of course, have been too good to be true – but his casting tape was duly sent in.

They hype surrounding the film was still raging and in June 2013 a director was announced. Sam Taylor-Johnson, a British mother-of-four best known for the movie
Nowhere
Boy
– a biopic about the Beatles star John Lennon – had beaten off stiff competition for the role, which purportedly included Hollywood beauty Angelina Jolie. Honoured to have been chosen by E.L. James, Sam vowed, as a
Fifty Shades
fan, to do it justice. ‘I am excited to be charged with the evolution of
Fifty Shades Of Grey
from page to screen,’ she said in a press statement in June 2013. ‘For the legions of fans, I want to say that I will honour the power of Erika’s book and the characters of Christian and Anastasia. They are under my skin too.’

Whether Jamie would be Sam’s Christian still remained to be seen but two weeks after her appointment, the actor had his own life-changing announcement to make. He had landed the role of his dreams. Two weeks after his picture-perfect wedding to beautiful Amelia, it was time to tell the world: Jamie Dornan was going to be a father.

J
amie couldn’t hide his excitement; he was going to see his baby for the very first time. Standing in his obstetrician dad’s private clinic back home in Belfast with beautiful Amelia by his side – already blossoming with a small baby bump – they were ready for the scan. In true Dornan family style, this was a moment no one wanted to miss so it wasn’t just Jamie and Amelia in the room, waiting to catch the first glimpse of the latest addition to the close-knit clan. Jamie’s step-mum Samina, now a qualified and well-respected obstetrician in her own right, had agreed to perform the scan herself. Amelia couldn’t have been in better hands; caring Samina, now a consultant in maternal fetal medicine in the city’s Royal Maternity Hospital, was used to carrying them out on pregnant women daily. And seeing her third grandchild wiggling about on the screen was
a proud and magical experience. ‘The early wellbeing scanning was a beautiful and emotional experience for all present,’ she told local newspaper
Sunday Life
soon after. ‘Jim and I are delighted that our third grandchild is on the way.’

It had indeed been a poignant moment for everyone inside the room. Fifteen years after Jamie’s mum Lorna had died from cancer and with his dad Jim now living daily with leukaemia, getting to the happy point of becoming a parent himself had seen Jamie endure some incredibly tough times. But this was all he had ever wanted. All those who knew and loved Jamie were aware that he had hoped to become a father for many years, as he once admitted that he was broody ‘just seeing strangers’ babies’.

Peering in on the tiny newborns, while he followed his dad around on Saturday morning ward rounds as an inquisitive schoolboy, had also clearly stuck with him. As an adult, his deep interest in his ‘baby doctor’ father’s life-changing job remained and just before announcing his impending fatherhood, Jamie became patron of premature baby charity Tinylife, of which his dad Jim was president.

With all those paternal instincts firmly in place and after having seen his baby alive and well on its first scan, the star was ready to embrace all that came with being a new parent – including the crying, changing dirty nappies and the dreaded sleep deprivation. It was clear that Jamie was going to approach his role of being a father with as much gusto and positivity as he would any acting role. ‘You might sleep a bit less but you’ve got this small life to look after,’ Jamie said of parents who moan
about being tired with a newborn. ‘I am quite good on little sleep. I think a lot of that is an attitude thing. I think the same about hangovers. You can compound your misery by not getting out of bed and not facing the day. But if you actually get the f*** up you might not be as miserable,’ he added in an interview to the
Daily Telegraph
newspaper.

Married life was going well for the loved-up duo; while remaining tight-lipped to the public about his baby, Jamie did admit to enjoying his honeymoon period with Amelia, two months after their nuptials. ‘It’s going well so far. It’s only been seven weeks and so it’s all fairly fresh,’ he said of his marriage. ‘It doesn’t feel massively different to how our life was before. It’s good fun.’

Preparations for the pitter-patter of tiny feet were also in full swing. Where to have the baby was one consideration and although it would have made sense for Jamie’s dad, as an expert in the field, to deliver his grandchild, Jim later admitted that it was never the plan. ‘I wasn’t in the delivery room for my grandchildren, I wasn’t even in the delivery room for my first child, even though I was an obstetrician I was told to leave the room in those days. I’m not sure it’s a particularly good idea,’ he admitted. Whatever was going to happen on the day, this new life was going to be loved and cherished, and would undeniably benefit from the Dornan family’s down-to-earth nature and love of life. And whichever way his career was going to turn in the next six months, Jamie’s father was going to be proudly watching this latest development in his son’s life with interest, while enjoying all the perks of being a grandfather. ‘I actually
found the whole thing [of becoming a grandfather] seamless, I feel like my grandchildren are actually my children. I have such a love for babies and everything that goes with them. There’s no doubt that the best thing about grandchildren is that you can hand them back,’ he admitted.

However, for notoriously private Jamie becoming a parent in the public eye would throw up more hazards than most new fathers would have to deal with. As well as the general worries that come with dealing with a fragile newborn, the actor – who was on the cusp of becoming one of the most famous stars of his generation – was facing having to fight tooth and nail to protect the privacy of his new family. Even before announcing Amelia’s pregnancy, photos of the pair eating in a restaurant had emerged in the press, questioning if fatherhood was on the cards, since his wife was drinking water at the table. In the coming months, additional glossy snaps, snatched from the roadside, appeared in more newspapers and magazine, as the actor and mother-to-be went about their daily business, shopping, chatting and going out for a coffee. With an already well-entrenched hate of the paparazzi and ongoing disbelief at the ridiculous rumours that crop up in the gossip press, Jamie was about to enter unknown territory as Celebrity Dad.

For the moment, though, that seemed a world away, since superstardom at the time appeared highly improbable. Jamie had been waiting to hear if his audition tape for
Fifty Shades of Grey
had been good enough to get a callback. Much to his disappointment, it hadn’t – someone else had landed the part of Christian Grey.

‘
I
am delighted to let you know that the lovely Dakota Johnson has agreed to be our Anastasia in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey,’ E.L. James tweeted to her fans on 3 September 2013. This announcement was followed two minutes later by: ‘The gorgeous and talented Charlie Hunnam will be Christian Grey.’

The punishingly long wait was over. After months of speculation over which Hollywood stars would be picked to play the sizzling leads, two relative unknowns had been chosen.
Sons of Anarchy
star Charlie, a British actor whose earliest starring role was in kids’ TV drama
Byker Grove
, had landed the part of ice-cold, sadomasochistic businessman Christian. It had been an ‘awesome audition’ according to producers and the chemistry between the blond hunk and twenty-three-year-old Californian Dakota, as his willing sex slave Ana, was reportedly so potent
that when asked to act out a bedroom scene, the part was his.

Jamie was undeniably disappointed. And, truth be told, he wasn’t the only one. While the
Fifty Shades
team, along with the author, were ‘thrilled’ with their decision, tens of thousands of fans were outraged. They had been whipped into a frenzy following weeks of whispers in the press and online gossip forums over who was likely to land the much-coveted roles. Many mentioned were A-listers, with
Twilight
heart-throb Robert Pattinson – said to be E.L. James’s top choice – at the forefront. On the other hand, the studio had reportedly offered
The Notebook
star Ryan Gosling – a favourite with the book’s readers who had dedicated whole fan pages to him filling the alluring role – the part. Other actors tipped to have been in the mix included Matt Bomer, Alexander Skarsgard, Theo James and Christian Cooke.

The shortlist for pretty college student Anastasia, meanwhile, was made up of six possible actors – all relatively unknown – including Imogen Poots, who had starred in
Jane Eyre
and American Elizabeth Olsen, who was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award earlier in the year. However, stunning Dakota, the daughter of
Miami Vice
star Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, had impressed in the audition room beyond expectation. ‘She looks too old,’ one fan moaned on a forum. ‘I’m not sure she can pull off sexy but I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what she can pull out of the bag,’ another said.

Her future co-star Hunnam, though, was confident that they could pull it off and tried to allay fans’ concerns. ‘I felt really intrigued and excited about the role of Christian so I went and
read the first book to get a clearer idea of who this character was, and I felt even more excited at the prospect of bringing him to life,’ he said of the audition process. ‘We [Taylor-Johnson and I] kind of both suggested I do a reading with Dakota, who was her favourite, and as soon as we got in the room and I started reading with Dakota I knew that I definitely wanted to do it. There’s just like a tangible chemistry between us. It felt exciting and fun and weird and compelling.’

By all accounts, the two actors – suddenly thrust into the world’s spotlight with the announcement – were overwhelmed and excited to be ‘entrusted with the roles’ in such a high-profile movie. Overnight, Geordie actor Charlie’s life was turned upside down. Not only were interview requests coming in ten to the dozen, neighbours reported that fans of the book were leaving their lacy underwear draped over the doorknob to his house. ‘We’ve seen frilly knickers, bras and even stockings left at his door by women as they try to get his attention. It’s very odd, we’ve never seen anything like it,’ one neighbour told a newspaper.

As if that wasn’t stressful enough, much to Hunnam’s horror, an internet campaign was launched against him and Dakota playing Christian and Anastasia. An ensuing online petition of over 80,000 names demanding that Universal Studios axe the pair, immediately made world news, as fans threatened to boycott the film on its release. In a US poll, 54 per cent voted to have new faces hired for the two kinky roles and as the weeks progressed, there seemed to be no let-up in the public outcry. One disgusted fan wrote, ‘Christian is supposed to be sexy and
mysterious. Charlie Hunnam looks dirty and very unappealing. I will not be watching the film with this cast.’

The much-anticipated launch of
Fifty Shades
was quickly descending into chaos, with social networking site Twitter awash with hateful comments towards the male actor, alongside complaints that he had been grossly miscast. Although just as many had leapt to Hunnam’s defence, saying that while he may not have the right ‘look’, he certainly had the required charm and charisma, it was too late. One month after accepting the role, the star quit. Even though he cited a busy TV schedule for leaving, explaining he wouldn’t have enough time to prepare for the role of Christian, insiders claimed that the star had got cold feet after being ‘overwhelmed’ by the public attention. He also reportedly had creative differences with the
Fifty Shades
team, including demanding script changes. As studio bosses were forced to hire a pair of bulky bodyguards to protect the stunned actor from crazed fans, others believed he simply couldn’t cope with the negative backlash. The actor later confessed that it was a combination of factors, admitting he had been close to a breakdown.

With filming in Canada scheduled to start in three weeks, there was no time to lose: Sam Taylor-Johnson and the team had to go back to the drawing board to find their perfect Christian. Back home in London, Jamie Dornan had heard the news and was wondering whether he may be given a second chance. ‘When Charlie dropped out I didn’t instantly think “Oh here we go, maybe I should cancel the holiday,” but I did feel that maybe we’d revisit the idea of me,’ he admitted.

The assumption was right; his tape had finally caught the eye of casting chiefs and he was invited for a last-minute face-to-face audition. Erika was already backing his corner. As a big fan of
The Fall
, she believed that his detached way of delivering Spector in the thrilling crime series was exactly the measured and controlled manner she was looking for in the actor playing Christian. It was true to say that Paul Spector’s chilling killer instinct was not dissimilar from megalomaniac Grey’s penchant for stalking and S&M, and if Jamie could nail that kind of tone again, he was in with a fighting chance.

Five days after Charlie had publicly quit, Dornan was on a flight to Los Angeles for an intense one-day tryout with Dakota Johnson. With producers desperate to fill the role, Jamie was plunged right into the action in front of the tough panel which included Erika and director Sam Taylor-Johnson. After meeting Dakota, they were told to re-enact two of the most crucial scenes in the book: the interview when Ana first meets Christian in his spacious office in Seattle, followed by the ‘climatic scene’ near the end of the book, which would inevitably include Jamie interacting sexually with the actress for the first time. Ensuring there was powerful chemistry between them was imperative. ‘There’s quite a lot going on in both scenes,’ Jamie said of the all-important audition. ‘The interview scene is sort of a condensed version of the journey that the two of them go on. There are so many layers in it. It’s a beast.’

While the book puts the reader inside Ana’s head, so we know what she’s thinking, Christian was going to be much harder to read and much of their sexually charged and
emotional moments within the story would likely be filling that communication gap.

Thankfully for Jamie, he managed to pull it off beautifully. As they acted out the ‘climatic scene’, the sexual desire between the muscular ex-model and his quirky co-star was both satisfyingly convincing and mesmerising. It was exactly what Erika had been hoping for. Not only did Jamie and Dakota work together in the attractiveness stakes, but there was a genuine ease between the pair of them, which would make it easier for them as actors to work through some of the more sexually explicit scenes. Communication and camaraderie were as important as chemistry, and the twosome clearly had them in buckets. ‘I presumed we had chemistry right away because they made it happen with us,’ Jamie said. ‘That’s a big part of it, having that [chemistry] and having trust because we got ourselves into situations that don’t feel natural and aren’t that easy and you definitely need to have that trust there.’

Moreover, Jamie looked spectacular on camera, as one would expect from a millionaire model. Ultimately, he could justly fit the description of twenty-seven-year-old Christian.

A journalist had written of Jamie prior to an interview, ‘The actor miraculously packs away the good looks – lapis lazuli eyes, delicate bones, he even has pretty ears.’ Thankfully, Jamie was more straightforward in personality than his screen alter ego. ‘He has nothing of the unhinged about him, no flicker of menace, only the genuine charm of someone who is never trying to charm,’ he continued.

It was very clear that they had found their man – and, even
better for Jamie, his modelling past wasn’t going to put him on a back foot. As fictional Christian is described in the romantic novel as one of the best-looking men in the world and Jamie had once been dubbed ‘the male Kate Moss’, this project was his best chance of getting his foot firmly on the rung of that Hollywood ladder.

It was the perfect role. ‘Modelling doesn’t hold you back in LA at all,’ he explained. ‘In LA they don’t think that because you leant against walls and looked depressed while someone took your photograph, it means you can’t act. In the UK there’s a massive stigma to it. You couldn’t possibly have had your photograph taken for a living and act.’

What clinched it was the fact that the producers were sold on the idea that Christian and Ana shouldn’t be played by already established Hollywood stars – instead, these roles should launch them higher into the echelons of Tinseltown royalty. ‘I always thought it would be better if we went with somebody unknown so everyone can discover them together, that’s where I really think we are now with Jamie and Dakota,’ Dana Brunetti admitted some months later.

It was by all accounts, one of Jamie’s more successful auditions and he returned home to London, to his pregnant wife Amelia, to wait for the call, which came just a few days later at two o’clock in the morning. Knowing that the decision was coming at such an unsociable hour, with Los Angeles eight hours behind, Jamie had stayed up especially in his pyjamas. When the phone finally rang, he was sitting on his sofa, clutching the handset nervously and watching reruns of
Storage Wars
on TV to try to stay calm.
‘I was sort of pretending I wasn’t waiting, but the phone was in my hand, halfway to my ear,’ he said.

It was Sam Taylor-Johnson on the line – and this time he heard the news he was hoping for: Christian Grey was his for the taking. That’s if he wanted it. There had, of course, been one very important consideration to make in accepting the role: his first child was due around the exact time when shooting was due to start, at the beginning of November. Ultimately, Jamie wanted his wife Amelia’s blessing before taking on the biggest role in his life to date. He also wanted to ensure that he would be there for the most important day in his life, seeing his first child being born.

For Amelia, her husband playing Christian meant facing the prospect of flying with him to Vancouver, heavily pregnant and hundreds of miles from home, where she would give birth in a hospital close to the movie set. ‘Amelia is in her last trimester of pregnancy. She was Jamie’s main concern when it came to signing the contract because he would be away from her for a large chunk of time while filming,’ a friend admitted at the time. After extensive talks, the pair decided that Jamie should go for it. ‘They’ve agreed it is too good an opportunity for him to turn down,’ the source added.

Jamie told Sam that the answer was ‘yes’. He was to play Christian Grey and thus become the object of millions of women’s fantasies. Even though it was a huge milestone in the thirty-one-year-old star’s career – a turning point – there was no champagne on ice after accepting the role. In fact his reaction couldn’t have been further from how his screen alter ego would
have greeted such news. ‘It was pretty exciting getting that call, I was in London at the time, it was 2 am and I was kind of waiting for it. But I was asleep pretty soon after I found out,’ he admitted to the
Today
programme. ‘You know I wasn’t in a normal time zone where I could go out and party and stuff. My heavily pregnant wife was downstairs sleeping so I just went downstairs and joined her in bed and went to sleep!’

A week after the audition, E.L. James announced the news on her Twitter feed. ‘Stow your twitchy palms ladies … our man is here.’

‘Welcome to TeamFifty@JamieDornan1 x’

When asked how she felt about the new choice, she added: ‘Thrilled’. Fans who had campaigned to get rid of Hunnam seemed ecstatic at the casting and flooded online blogs and forums to signal their approval. Crissy Maier, co-founder of the
Fifty Shades
fan site
Laters, Baby
, said, ‘He has the right look and he’s also new enough that he probably doesn’t have a high price tag … I like his underwear ads myself.’

In fact, Jamie had driven quite a hard bargain before accepting the part, convincing producers to agree to a series of demands alongside a base salary of £80,000 for the first movie. As
The Sun
pointed out, ‘If Jamie Dornan is as ruthless at wielding a whip as he is in business negotiations he’s going to leave his
Fifty Shades
of Grey
co-star very sore indeed.’ The biggest coup in the deal was sealing a share of the film’s profits, which will see him a very rich man if the much-hyped movie proves to be a box office triumph. His agent also wangled him a guarantee that he could leave the set when Amelia went into labour, thus enabling him
to spend some time with his wife and newborn. On top of that, with a new series of
The Fall
due to start shooting in the early part of 2014, he insisted that all his scenes were wrapped up in time for him to honour that commitment. ‘Jamie has played this to his advantage amazingly – he’s very savvy about the deal he’s netted. A share in the movie’s profits will bring stacks of cash,’ a source told
The Sun
newspaper at the time.