Television is going through a golden age but viewers are so spoilt for choice there is a danger people miss the good stuff, the actor Jamie Dornan has said.
Dornan is about to be seen on film in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and on television in BBC One’s six-part thriller The Tourist.
In an interview with the Radio Times, he said it was a golden age of television, but that came with danger. “We are so spoilt for choice,” he said. “And you’ve also got that ability now where if you’re not enjoying it, you move on to the next thing. Which I think is a bit dangerous.
“You know, it’s sad. How many times do we watch stuff and say: ‘I wasn’t sure – it took me three episodes to get into it.’ But it’s still hard to get stuff made. If you’ve got to the stage of getting it made, chances are there’s something good in there, and you’ve just got to give it a chance.”
Dornan was a hugely successful model before turning to acting with a smouldering appearance in Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette, which led to a piece in the New York Times headlined “The Golden Torso”. His breakthrough came as the sexy serial killer in the BBC drama series The Fall, starring alongside Gillian Anderson.
He gained further stardom, as well as much derision, for his portrayal of Christian Grey in the film adaptation of the sadomasochistic romp Fifty Shades of Grey. That was followed by the critically panned Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described Dornan’s performances in Fifty Shades of Grey as “strictly daytime soap”. His performance in Belfast, on the other hand, has been widely praised, with speculation that he may make it on to the best supporting actor Oscar shortlist. The film goes on general release next month but has already picked up five-star reviews from festival screenings.
In The Tourist, Dornan plays a nameless British man who wakes up in the Australian outback with amnesia and who is being pursued by dangerous, shady figures from his past.
At the start of the year, while Dornan was quarantining in an Australian hotel before the shoot, his father, Prof Jim Dornan, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, died from Covid.
“We’ve all had some sort of testing experience, albeit some more than others,” Dornan said. “As bad as the personal impact on me has been, I’m hoping that something positive comes out of Covid in that this will, in our lifetime, probably be the one thing that worldwide we’ve all experienced together. It’s impacted us all in different ways, of course, but hopefully will have a unifying quality.”
