His modeling career versus real life: He’s a hard-drinking, rugby-playing, Man United-supporting 31-year-old who listens to The Kinks, reads Oscar Wilde and litters his conversation with expletives. ‘I’ve never felt massively satisfied from standing there while someone takes my photograph,’ he says. ‘It’s never given me a thrill.. It would take a very foolish man to turn down the stuff that was offered to me. You’re in your twenties, and people are going to give you a silly amount of money to lean against a wall with your head down. F*** me, you’ve got to do it.’
He’s got a lot of failed auditions behind him: ‘I mean f***ing hundreds of them. Some of them totally humiliating experiences. People attach too much to the idea of being a model, that you can only be a certain way to have done it. You will always be dealing with it. You’re an actor who used to be a model who never trained; there are not many directors queuing up.’
He auditioned for Christian Grey early but lost out to Charlie Hunnam. ‘You know, one door closes, another opens. When he dropped out, I didn’t instantly think, “Oh, here we go, maybe I should cancel that holiday,” but I did feel that maybe we’d revisit the idea
of me.’
He lost his mom and four close friends when he was 16: ‘Going through that certainly has had an effect on the darker side of my psyche. I was 16… Look, I’m not saying that experiencing loss is why I can cope with darker worlds, I’m not saying that for a second, but I think it opens up a side of you in terms of work that wouldn’t be as accessible had that stuff not happened.’
Being Keira’s boyfriend back in the day: ‘It was a strange environment to find yourself in, being hounded and followed. It’s really hideous. F***ing hell, [the paparazzi] are cretins. I couldn’t have less respect for those guys. There are so many ways to make a living that don’t involve hiding in bushes opposite houses of 18-year-old girls with a camera in your hand. That’s not making a living, that’s making a choice to be a perverted f***head.’
Stardom in his 30s: ‘That scrutiny when you’re older will be easier to take. And I don’t think I’m ever going to be as famous as her [Keira].’
Cele|bitchy | Jamie Dornan on the paparazzi: ‘They are cretins, I couldn’t have less respect’
