Actor referred to as 'model to actor transformation': Who is Jamie Dornan?

Jamie Dornan was born on May 1, 1982 in County Down, Northern Ireland. His mother is Lorna Dornan and his father is obstetrician and gynecologist Jim Dornan. Dornan lost his mother to pancreatic cancer when he was 16, and his father died on March 15, 2021, due to complications related to COVID-19. Dornan has two older sisters, Liesa, who works for Disney, and Jessica, a fashion designer.

Growing up in Belfast, Dornan attended Methodist College, where he played rugby and attended the drama department. He was a member of Belfast's youth amateur drama group Holywood Players and has appeared with the group several times at Ballymoney's Drama Festival. While attending Teesside University, he dropped out and moved to London in 2002 to study acting. However, he did not do anything for his acting career. After moving, he suffered financially and worked in a Knightsbridge bar for six months to earn a living. Dornan then started his modeling career.

Dornan was not keen on pursuing modeling as his career, but was persuaded by his parents. In 2001, he took part in the reality program of Channel 4 TV channel "Model Behaviour". Despite being eliminated, he signed a contract with Select Model Management. In 2003, he modeled with actress Malin Åkerman for the brand Abercrombie & Fitch. Then he modeled for luxury clothing brand Aquascutum, luxury fashion house Hugo Boss and Italian fashion house Armani.

Dornan, who was the face of Dior Homme's perfume advertising campaign in 2005, made his debut in Calvin Klein's advertising campaign in 2004 with Russian model Natalia Vodianova. He later appeared in jeans ad campaigns for the Calvin Klein brand, with model Kate Moss in 2006 and actress Eva Mendes in 2010.

Dubbed "model-to-actor transform," Dornan said the title carries a significant stigma associated with such a transition. Struggling with auditions and casting agencies that only treated his as a model, Dornan always wanted to act and was determined to prove his acting talents. His first acting role in a movie came with the role of Count Axel Fersen in the historical drama movie "Marie Antoinette" (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola.

In 2006, Dornan was awarded the title of "Golden Body" by The New York Times. He also took part as a jury member in Calvin Klein's 'Nine countries, nine men, one winner' model hunt competition. Also that year, he was named "male Kate Moss" by GQ magazine.

Dornan performed in the folk group "Sons of Jim", which he formed with schoolmate David Alexander and until they disbanded in 2008. The group formed their own record label, "Doorstep Records", under which they released the songs "Fairytale" and "My Burning Sun". That same year, he played the lead role of Ed in "Beyond the Rave", a production of Hammer Horror. He also appeared in the drama film "Shadows in the Sun" (2009) with Jean Simmons. That year, he became the face of Calvin Klein fashion house's 'CK Free' perfume, while he also took part in Calvin Klein's underwear campaign alone.

Dornan gained recognition for playing the role of Hunter/Sheriff Graham in nine episodes of the fantasy adventure drama television series "Once Upon a Time" on ABC between 2011 and 2013. Laura Prudom of The Huffington Post said she did an excellent job on Dornan's performance.

Later, Dornan played Paul Spector, a serial killer terrorizing Belfast, in the crime drama TV series "The Fall" set and filmed in Northern Ireland with Gillian Anderson. He initially auditioned for his smaller role, but was auditioned for the lead role and was widely acclaimed for his performance. David Thomson of The New Republic magazine praised Dornan for his performance. He earned his first Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor in Television and a nomination for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. Stating that the series was a turning point in his career, Dornan appeared in the historical drama series "New Worlds" in 2014 as Abe Goffe.

In October 2013, Dornan was selected for the role of Christian Gray in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. After visiting a special sex dungeon to portray his sadistic character in the film, Dornan reprized his role in the second and third films of the Fifty Shades film series in "Fifty Shades Darker" (2017) and "Fifty Shades Freed" (2018). The film series, which earned approximately $ 1.32 billion, managed to become the seventh highest-grossing R-rated series. Despite being a blockbuster, the film series received poor reviews from critics. Dornan's performance also received critical acclaim. For his role, he won "Worst Actor" and "Worst Screen Combo" at the Golden Raspberry Awards.

In 2015, he was named one of the "25 Greatest Male Models of All Time" by Vogue magazine. Again in 2015, he was ranked 3rd in GQ magazine's list of the 50 best-dressed British men, respectively, and 15th in this list in 2016.

Later, Dornan starred in the Miramax movie "The 9th Life of Louis Drax" (2016), a supernatural thriller based on the book of the same name directed by Alexandre Aja. He played Allan Pascal. That same year, Dornan took on the role of Commander Pat Quinlan in Netflix's historical action-war movie "The Siege of Jadotville," directed by Richie Smyth. The actor, who had to train for his role in the movie, was sent, along with the rest of the cast, to a boot camp in South Africa. The film received mixed reviews from critics. For his performance, he earned his third nomination for best actor in a lead role at the Irish Film and Television Award.

In the same year, he played Jan Kubiš, who co-starred with Cillian Murphy in another war movie, "Anthropoid," directed by Sean Ellis. Acclaimed for his performance, Dornan earned nominations for the British Independent Film Award and the Czech Lion Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 2018, Dornan portrayed the role of journalist Danny Tate alongside Peter Dinklage in the HBO television drama movie "My Dinner with Hervé" written and directed by Sacha Gervasi. The plot of the movie was a fictionalized version of an interview Gervasi had with actor Hervé Villechaize in 1993, days before his suicide. Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe said that Dornan managed to bring a good sense of transformation into an excellent and undertaken character.

That same year, he appeared in the biographical war drama film "A Private War" as journalist Paul Conroy. Dornan was praised for his performance, while Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described the performance as "the excellent work of a Fifty Shades veteran." Later that year, he starred as Will Scarlet in the action adventure movie "Robin Hood" and as Nick, a doctor and memoirist, in the drama movie "Untogether." Also that year, they became the new faces of "Boss The Scent" for Hugo Boss along with Dutch model Birgit Kos in 2018.

In 2019, Dornan appeared as a paramedic in the sci-fi thriller horror movie "Synchronic" directed by Aaron Moorhead. The film, which premiered at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival, received positive reviews from critics. Also that year, he played the lead role of an Irish writer in the semi-improvised romantic drama "Endings, Beginnings."

Dornan then starred in the romantic comedy-drama film "Wild Mountain Thyme" (2020) and two more films, the comedy "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar" (2021). The first film, a film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's own play Outside Mullingar, was poorly received and drew criticism for its diacritics. Despite this, Simran Hans of The Guardian described Dornan's performance as a laudable comic book genius achievement. The second film, on the other hand, received positive reviews and applause from critics with its musical number and comedic spin.

In 2021, Dornan played a working-class father in the drama film "Belfast," written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. The character in the movie was based on Branagh's father, and his performance was greatly appreciated. Dornan was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Critics' Choice Movie Award. The movie earned a nomination for Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards.

He later got the lead role of a forgetful in the BBC thriller drama TV series "The Tourist". With its release in January 2022, it became the most watched program of that month, and it also managed to get the highest ratings until then. While both Dornan and critics found his character compelling, TV critic Lucy Mangan highlighted Dornan's "compelling performance" in a review for The Guardian, stating that she found him in good standing.

Private life

Dornan, who met actress Keira Knightley at an Asprey photo shoot in 2003, decided to break up in 2005 after being together for two years. Then, he met British actress and singer-songwriter Amelia Warner in 2010. The couple got engaged in 2012 and decided to marry in 2013. The couple has three daughters.

Dornan gave his financial and moral support to various tools and organizations. He was the founder of TinyLife, a Northern Irish charity for premature and vulnerable babies. In 2018, Dornan also became patron of the newly formed Northern Ireland Pancreatic Cancer (NIPanC) charity, created in partnership with Pancreatic Cancer Action and the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund. He left the patronage due to his busy shooting schedule, but remained a strong supporter. Dornan has also supported emergency campaigns that provide assistance for all children to treat any illness.

Working with fashion photographers Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber, Carter Smith and designer Hedi Slimane throughout his career, Dornan's modeling prominence was with his appearance, dubbed "Dornan Furrow" by the industry and media. In 2014, Dornan was ranked third on People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" list. Dornan, an atheist, has said in interviews that he considers himself Irish. He launched his own menswear brand, 'Eleven Eleven', in 2022.