’50 Shades of Grey’ Star Dismisses Series, Doesn’t Think About It

50 Shades of Grey rocketed to pop culture ubiquity on the back of Twilight‘s own massive, vampiric success, transposing its Bella and Edward into the BDSM world of Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). However, it turns out one of the franchise’s stars doesn’t even think about it much anymore or care how fans feel.

Since 50 Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan has starred in Robin Hood (2018), the critically acclaimed Belfast (2021), and the upcoming Gal Gadot spy thriller Heart of Stone. He will also be starring in the third Kenneth Branagh Agatha Christie adaptation A Haunting in Venice, so the actor stays busy. Presumably, he does not have a whole lot of time to think about his old franchise.

In a recent interview with MovieWeb, 50 Shades of Grey lead Jamie Dornan revealed that he does not put a lot of feeling or time into how fans of the series see him or may associate him with Christian Grey.

Specifically, the 50 Shades of Grey star says, “I honestly just don’t think about that. You know, I just don’t. If I thought about that, it would be sort of detrimental to everyone else around me and what we’re trying to do.

Jamie Dornan goes on to say that he “[C]an’t control if other people have some sort of pre-ordained perception of me, what kind of characters that I’ve played, or the ones that they know of. If they can’t shake off other characters that I’ve done before and get themselves into what they’re watching, that’s on them. I don’t know. So, I certainly don’t worry about myself or give any thought to [that].”

In fairness, as a professional actor, Jamie Dornan probably does have a necessity to move on with his career and not dwell on a single role. On the other hand, 50 Shades of Grey unquestionably launched Dornan into leading man status, so maybe he could actually think about it and the fandom every once in a while.

The role of Christian Grey was reportedly first offered to Ryan Gosling, who declined the role. Garret Hedlund and Stephen Amell were both considered until Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam finally took it on. However, then Hunnam had to decline for scheduling reasons (as with so many stars and lost roles), and finally, Jamie Dornan ended up starring with Dakota Johnson.