Jamie Dornan

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:46

My castaway this week is the actor Jamie Dornan. He was born in Hollywood, the Belfast one, but his career has taken him to the more famous one, first as an internationally successful model and then as one of the most in-demand actors of his generation. The model-turned actor tag was, he says, a difficult one to shake at first, but he did it, with famously good humour and critically acclaimed performances, like his breakthrough role as the disturbingly charming serial killer in the BBC drama The Fall. Since then, he's earned rave reviews playing Kenneth Branner's father in the film Belfast. Along the way, he fronted the billion-dollar franchise that was the 50 Shades of Grey series and starred in the hit television series The Tourist, which attracted millions of viewers and recently returned for its second season. He says, There's no better high than reading a script and feeling that you're the only person who can bring it to life, but it goes with that constant babble with your inner self. After you've convinced yourself it has to be you, on day one, you're questioning why they haven't considered the other guy. Jamie Dornan, welcome to Desert Island Disc.

Jamie Dornan1:49

Thank you very much for having me.

Presenter1:50

So let's start with that challenge then of getting out of your head and into the role. There's a balance to strike for actors between the preparation and then the play, you know, getting ready for a part and then being spontaneous and open on set. How do you get that right? How do you strike that balance?

Jamie Dornan2:05

I probably don't get that right most of the time.

Jamie Dornan2:08

I think you need a huge amount of confidence and self-belief to be an actor and to perform in front of anybody. And often I find actors are the most riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing. So I think there's always this aspect of having to overcome something, but not overcome it so much that you have total comfort. I think you need to always be slightly afraid when you step on a set. That discomfort can be when you're portraying an uncomfortable situation, but that discomfort can also be when you're portraying confidence. I'm probably most uncomfortable playing

Speaker 42:15

Hmm.

Speaker 12:16

Uh

Speaker 12:26

Mm.

Jamie Dornan2:50

Comfortable?

Presenter2:51

Can you give us an example of when when you've you know when you've found a that discomfort in a role and it's it's really worked for you?

Jamie Dornan2:58

Probably the opposite. I have to say with the fall, I felt uncomfortable with the idea of playing someone so heinous. But then once I realized that there was something that was working in what I was doing, I was able to kind of lean into it more, you know. So I find that very fascinating, that sort of trying to sell something that is so other to you and make it comfortable enough that you can believe it yourself then for people to believe it. It's very tricky water.

Presenter3:33

You said actors that you meet are very often riddled with self-doubt. You know I'm going to have to ask you. Are you?

Jamie Dornan3:37

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan3:40

Massively.

Jamie Dornan3:42

Do you know what I mean? Um I'm pretty good at convincing myself and backing myself, and I do think that can get you pretty far. You know, I'm happier with my s self doubt because it always gives you something to try to prove.

Presenter3:47

Yeah.

Speaker 13:47

Yeah.

Presenter3:56

Well, you have nothing to prove here on the island, Jamie. Let's get going with your music choices, shall we? What's disc number one?

Jamie Dornan4:03

If you're from where I'm from and you grew up in Belfast, whether you.

Jamie Dornan4:08

Want it or not, Van Marten is inserted into your soul at birth.

Jamie Dornan4:16

I love him. I just love him. And I pick Caravan because I think it sort of encompasses the sort of joy of his music, the camaraderie and sort of family idea of his music and love, God he sings about love like no one else.

Speaker 44:45

Yeah, the chair fan is all my friends.

Speaker 44:51

Yeah, stay with me until the end.

Speaker 44:57

Gypsy Raw

Speaker 45:00

The sweet albaro Tell me

Presenter5:04

Van Morrison and Caravan. So Jamie Dordan, you were born in nineteen eighty two in Hollywood, County Down, just outside Belfast, the youngest of three kids. What are your memories of growing up there in the late eighties?

Jamie Dornan5:16

Extremely happy, but

Jamie Dornan5:19

You can you cannot be from

Jamie Dornan5:22

That part of the world and not be acutely affected because it's almost like now I look back at what we took for granted as normal behavior. You know, we'd sorta arrange to meet outside fast food chain on a Saturday after we finished rugby or whatever in in town in Belfast and

Speaker 15:37

The f

Speaker 45:37

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan5:44

It felt like every other Saturday there'd be a a bomb scare and someone would call the house phone and say, Look, there's a bomb scare obviously if w w won't meet up today.

Presenter5:51

And what about for your parents? I mean, your your dad had quite a prominent role, so

Jamie Dornan5:55

Yeah, yeah. And where, you know, dad was an obstetrician gynecologist based at the the Royal Maternity, which is the epicenter of a lot of the madness and dad delivered over six thousand babies from both sides of the line. And there I remember times, you know, where dad would go out and you know be checking under the car for bombs and doing it with him.

Speaker 16:07

Uh

Speaker 46:07

Uh

Speaker 16:07

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan6:18

thinking it was kind of fun funny or like a fun activity, sort of get on your hands and knees and look look under the car. But then also I remember dad got uh letters from

Jamie Dornan6:29

I can't name names here, but like from prominent figures from a loyalist community and prominent figures from Republican communities, both based on difficult pregnancies that someone close to them had had and that had sort of helped them through and everything. And basically sort of saying from our side, it's all good. And then from our side, it's all good. Mad, like just mad, but comforting at the same time and probably less checking under the car.

Presenter6:54

And your own dad obviously such a a force for good, a positive force. Those six thousand babies, hopefully most of them still walking around out there. Do you ever meet them? Is anyone ever kidding me?

Jamie Dornan6:57

Those

Jamie Dornan6:59

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan7:03

Are you kidding me? I think I've met all 6,000, honestly, at this stage. The amount of times people come up to me if I'm at home and I'm like, oh here we go. They'll say something nice about whatever film I've had just come out or whatever. They say, can I just say? And I say, yeah, go. Oh, here we go. Your dad delivered me and my sister. And my mum always talks about how much she fancied your dad. I'm like, oh, listen, that's lovely.

Speaker 17:21

Yeah.

Speaker 47:21

Uh

Speaker 17:21

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan7:29

Now listen, it's been a lovely thing and you know, since we lost dad a couple of years back, it's a huge comfort.

Presenter7:36

Your mum Lorna was a nurse. Did they meet at work?

Jamie Dornan7:38

They did, they met. So now at the Royal Victoria Hospital there is a giant car park, but back in the day there was an outdoor swimming pool that was for the staff. And Dad was in the pool and he saw a beautiful brunette climbing out of the pool and that was my mother. And when the plans passed for the car park they were about to fill in the swimming pool and dad happened to be driving through the hospital and got out and in a very sort of dad kind of way went and sort of found the sort of head guy with the hard hat on and said listen what's crack with the steps? He said we're just gonna throw them out. He said I'd love to love to keep the steps. So we had the steps propped up against the shed in our garden for years that he first saw my mum in.

Presenter8:33

Jamie, it's time for your second piece of music, disc number two. What have you got for us?

Jamie Dornan8:37

I get homesick for Ireland and Belfast and the people. So often when I'm away, I'll sort of find myself sort of googling stuff. You know, I'll be on like local newspapers at home reading headlines and stuff. And I'd obviously like typed in Ulster somewhere. I'd written the word Ulster and came across this recording by the Ulster Orchestra of Philip Glass's Violin Concerto Second Movement. This was just one of those pieces of music that I instantly went, I'm gonna be listening to this a lot in my life, and I do, I go to it all the time.

Presenter10:11

The second movement from Philip Glasser's Violin Concerto No. One, performed by Adele Antony, with the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Takuo Uasa.

Presenter10:20

Jamie Donan, I think an early dramatic highlight for you was a fairly spectacular performance as Widow Twankie in the School Panto. You were ten, and how did you approach the role?

Jamie Dornan10:31

We had an amazing cleaner called Nellie Morgan, who was a formidable woman. Now she lived in a place called Short Strand, very infamous part of Belfast because it is a sort of nationalist Republican estate right on the edge of East very predominantly loyalist part of East Belfast. It was a dangerous place. I don't think Nellie Morgan would have ever been scared in her life. She was just unbelievable. And she used to walk from there six miles to clean for us. And when you offered her a lift, if we were like, look, we're heading up the road to Belfast now, she'd usually say no. She was just brilliant. I just loved her. And I would say that look, I'm playing widow drawing.

Speaker 111:01

Left.

Jamie Dornan11:11

And I've sort of I'm gonna steal some of your traits basically. Anyway, a big regret is, and I don't know how or why it happened, but they're probably just very stingy on tickets. But she didn't come to see the performance. I think we did two performances of it. But I won the drama prize, and I was very smug. I guess it was my first sense of getting a sense of satisfaction from performance.

Presenter11:34

By the time you started secondary school at at Methodist College Belfast, rugby was a passion of yours. I wonder what you got out of drama that you didn't get from rugby. That must have been quite different worlds, quite different peer groups.

Jamie Dornan11:46

Yeah, big time. You know, rugby's a you know, a huge love of mine, but there's also a sort of boys' club side to it where it's like you're you're this kind of proper man and

Presenter11:56

Kind of match your culture.

Jamie Dornan11:57

Yeah, and I I'm I'm I'm f I'm fine with that, but I also think I knew that there was a diff side of me that was probably wanting to sort of skip about.

Jamie Dornan12:07

Be free. Be a bit more free. And we had this drama studio at school, and you'd come off the hustle and bustle and the madness of the main corridor and go into these big, thick, black doors, and you go into this space that was all black. Everything was black. It sounds really depressing, but it was like the most joyous space ever. Because everyone just left their inhibitions at the door in the corridor, and you could muck about and play.

Presenter12:31

Jamie, it's time for your third piece of music today, disc number three. What are we going to hear next and why are you taking it to the island?

Jamie Dornan12:37

Cigaros are amazing and three of my best friends and I went to Latitude Festival and we started wandering our way down to the main stage where cigarots were playing. I will say that we were sort of suitably influenced is probably about as good a way of saying the sort of our state that we were in. That sound they created is like nothing else and it was just like flowing up this sort of bank to us like it was penetrating us at the back of this bank. And the four of us sort of looked at each other and went, let's just lie down right here. And Hopipulla, I probably butchered that, literally started as our sort of bums hit the floor and we lay down and we didn't speak to each other. Occasionally one of us would turn around and look at each other in the eyes. We were all just acutely aware of like how special this sort of moment was and that we were getting to share this together.

Presenter14:02

Siguros and Hopipola. Jamie Dornan, when you were just fourteen, your mother Lorna was diagnosed with cancer and was told it was inoperable.

Presenter14:13

It must have been an unimaginably difficult time for your family. You were so young. I wonder whether you knew how serious it was from the beginning.

Speaker 114:17

You wanna

Jamie Dornan14:24

Um

Jamie Dornan14:26

I don't know if I know how I felt in a weird way, because it was such a I would say I was a very young 14-year-old. I will never forget where I was. I'd just finished playing rugby actually at Purry Park, which is the playing fields of my old school in Methodi. And I got in the car. And I knew Mum had been going in to the hospital that day for tests and stuff. But I didn't quite know what the crack was with any of us. And Dad told me there and then, before we even turned the engine on, that she wasn't going to survive.

Jamie Dornan15:04

I think that was the only way. I'm really glad that I told me that way. I don't think it would have been right to say, but okay.

Speaker 415:10

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan15:11

We're all gonna think part of the thoughts and

Speaker 415:11

Bro

Jamie Dornan15:13

You know, and we'll be praying every night. And you know, we weren't a religious family by any stretch at all, so I'm sort of thankful that it was told to me straight like that. Yeah, it's a funny thing. Like, I wish and I sometimes feel guilty saying this, but there's a lot that I don't remember about her.

Presenter15:33

Because you didn't ha know you had to. You just being a kid.

Jamie Dornan15:35

I guess so. You're not expecting any of that to be taken away.

Presenter15:39

Yeah. What kind of support did did the family give you after you lost your mum?

Jamie Dornan15:44

Amazing. Both my sisters are amazing. Amazing people.

Jamie Dornan15:48

Um

Jamie Dornan15:51

Yeah, I definitely felt that. I felt that love and support. You know, my dad, I remember saying, you know, can't let this be the thing that defines us.

Jamie Dornan16:01

And I'm really grateful for those words and I um

Presenter16:04

What did they do for you?

Jamie Dornan16:07

I don't know, it was like it was like trying to say that like

Jamie Dornan16:10

you can live a a fulfilled and positive and happy life still. Now that doesn't lessen the impact of losing mum or anything, but I guess it was just to give us

Jamie Dornan16:23

Dad sort of giving us the okay that like it's it's okay to to see happiness in your future. And yeah, but then uh the next summer a very tragic other tragic thing happened in my life and uh four of my mates were killed in a a car crash. And in in many ways that was had a bigger impact on me. Whereas with mum there was an inevitability about it. With the boys it was just total shock and denial.

Speaker 116:45

Yeah. By the way,

Jamie Dornan16:55

Yeah, I remember distinctly th thinking, like, going through all this now, this will probably toughen me up a fair bit, like, you know, when I get older because I've had the I haven't had a great couple of years with this stuff.

Presenter17:04

Yeah.

Presenter17:11

Jimmy, let's have your next piece of music. It's your fourth choice today. What's it going to be?

Jamie Dornan17:16

I think I heard this song for the first time. In my head it was like the first time my sisters and I and our dad were together since finding out that mum wasn't gonna make it. And also in my head we were sort of like sat around the record player as the song played. I remember just thinking this has been written for us. And then subsequently the same song then came on the radio one evening when I was driving round Belfast with Trev, who's one of my best mates. And we just looked at each other and started singing it. And it's really hard to sing. And we tried to stay in tune with the boys. I was sort of cry laughing my whole way through it. So it's sort of double meaning for me. This is Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon LeGarfunkel.

Speaker 118:02

With

Speaker 418:18

Feeling small

Speaker 418:22

When tears are in your eyes

Speaker 418:30

I will drive them.

Presenter18:38

On your side.

Presenter18:43

Simon and Garfunkel Bridge over troubled water.

Presenter18:46

Jamie Dornan, you started a marketing degree at Teesside University in Middlesbrough two thousand one, but you dropped out after your first year and went back home. Obviously, you'd been through a lot. What do you remember about that time?

Jamie Dornan18:59

I drank a lot.

Presenter19:00

Mm.

Jamie Dornan19:01

I was probably depressed if I'm really honest with myself and just clueless about what I wanted to do.

Jamie Dornan19:09

I remember my dad just saying, just do something. You just gotta do something. I don't care if you just go and like play golf every day because at least it's productive. At least you're like trying to get better at golf. You're just doing nothing and I can't watch it.

Presenter19:21

So it was your sister Jess that put you up for a reality television show called Model Behavior, and that followed would be models. You didn't win, but you got an agent and started working with huge brands like Dior and Calvin Klein. What was it like seeing yourself on huge billboards?

Jamie Dornan19:36

Very strange. It's not something that I ever envisaged for myself, so it was very strange. I'll never forget the first time I was I was walking through New York and I'd done this Calvin Klein campaign and there's a massive like billboard with um Natalia Vodianova. We're on this like black sand beach and she's like pulled down my Calvin Klein jeans and she's basically like taking a bite out of my arse.

Jamie Dornan20:03

Or looking like she's about to do that and I just looked up and saw it for the first time and I was like, oh my god. And as I looked up, there's a woman beside me, went, that's disgusting. And I went, that's me. That's actually me. That's my bum and that's my face. But it was a very strange situation that I didn't seek out, but then it was very quite quickly good to me.

Speaker 420:05

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 420:09

Yeah.

Speaker 420:29

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dornan20:30

People were getting in your ear saying, Have you ever thought about acting? You'd be like, Well, actually did you heard about my widow twenty in nineteen ninety two I mean I guess it it it helped that at at that time I was my profile as a model was was big. There was a sort of want from that side. I felt like whether even I wanted it or not and then slowly but surely I was convinced that I I did want to do that.

Speaker 120:35

My will of Twinkie was actually.

Presenter20:53

Jamie, let's have some more music. Disc number five, what are we going to hear next?

Jamie Dornan20:57

Meturi by Brendan Benson. In that summer that we're talking about, I drank a lot, as I said, I didn't achieve a lot. And my eldest sister Lisa had got me like a C D and I think it was called Acoustic Volume 2, right? And there'd obviously been an Acoustic Volume 1 that I'm not aware of. And although I was sort of quite rudderless, I was doing a lot of thinking. And often when I was doing my thinking, this album was on. I've always felt that it's like my little secret, this song. It's really strange. And it just takes me back to that time and those big decisions that were needing to be made so I could kick on with the rest of my life.

Speaker 421:39

Introduced myself here I asked her to go with me no one else She said I'd really like to see you everyday

Speaker 421:57

I'm afraid of what my friends might say

Speaker 422:03

You need a bad

Presenter22:07

Brendan Benson and Meta Ree.

Presenter22:09

Jamie Dornan, while you were modelling you started auditioning for acting roles. How soon did things start happening for you?

Jamie Dornan22:16

I had had an agent for less than twenty four hours and he sent me out in this audition for a movie called Marie Antoinette. Suddenly a day later I was on a train to Paris and I auditioned for it there with a French casting director. And then that evening I sat in the Hemingway bar at the Ritz in Paris with Sophia Coppel having sort of martinis. And I was just really casual about the whole thing. And then when I sort of didn't then I when I was actively auditioning for like a good few years after and didn't get any work, then I really realised like how good I had it at the beginning.

Presenter22:52

You had modelling to to pay the bills. But do you think once you started pursuing it more actively that that model turned actor tag was a problem?

Jamie Dornan23:00

Um, not in the States. There'd be no change in their face if you said you'd model first.

Presenter23:03

What is it that about, do you think?

Jamie Dornan23:07

I like to say it's just sort of snobbery. I felt a great deal of that early on and

Jamie Dornan23:12

It was a above and uphill battle.

Presenter23:14

And what gave you the self-belief to keep going and push through that?

Jamie Dornan23:17

I'm pretty determined person, I think. Again, I'm not sure if I hadn't experienced that loss and all that stuff we've already discussed. I'm not sure I would be that determined, but like something was lit under me at some stage.

Presenter23:30

So that tenacity paid off. In in twenty twelve, you auditioned for a part in a new BBC television drama called The Fall. It starred Gillian Anderson and was about a detective on the trail of a serial killer called Paul Specter. What do you remember about your audition?

Jamie Dornan23:44

I auditioned to play a police officer who dies in the second episode, which at the time I was like happy just to get in the room. Didn't hear anything. I was going out to LA for pilot season. Anyway, whilst I was out there, I was probably a week or ten days into this trip. And I got a call from Aiden saying, look, they want you to audition again for the fall. It is for a different part. And I was like, oh, here we go. They said, no, it's it's for the main guy. I remember thinking, if I get this, this will change the course of my career. I was right, it did. It literally changed my career overnight.

Presenter24:18

Let's have some more music. Disc number six, Jamie. What's it gonna be?

Jamie Dornan24:22

I met Millie Amelia Warner in 2010 in LA at a house party and I have this old Mercedes, this old 1988 Mercedes, the first car I ever bought with my first like good paycheck when I was like 22 or something. I still have it today. It's beautiful, she's called Macy. And I had the roof down in Macy. We were driving along and so I played her this song that I knew she wouldn't know by The Beach Boys. And I just watched her reaction. I was driving, so I was watching the road as well. I was sort of turning around to look at her reaction. And she was just instantly impacted by the song. It then seemed appropriate that it would be our first dance at our wedding. The opening line, if every word I said could make you laugh, I'd talk forever, is pretty much exactly how I feel about my wife. Making her laugh is my favourite thing in the world to do. This is Forever by The Beach Boys.

Speaker 425:20

There we are top rivers.

Speaker 425:29

I asked the sky, just what we had

Speaker 425:42

Song Listen Too.

Presenter25:46

The Beach Boys and Forever. Jamie Donan, in 2015 you played Christian Gray in Sam Taylor Wood's film 50 Shades of Grey which is based on the erotic novel by E. L. James. So you got the part just weeks before shooting was due to start in Vancouver after the actor who was originally cast pulled out. Your wife Millie meanwhile was heavily pregnant with your first child and the shoot was going to take several months so you had a big decision about whether you should both go.

Jamie Dornan26:11

I'm amazed that Millie didn't just say no, fair play there. What an unbelievable woman to hop on a private jet because we couldn't fly commercially with my dad on it because if she went into labor in the sky, there needed to be an obstetrician, honestly. I mean, this is all serious. My dad had to come with us. And I'll never forget we were somewhere over New York, and my dad ordered a gin and tonic. And I was like, I don't know, dad, like.

Speaker 426:27

I mean that's his old

Speaker 126:29

Uh

Speaker 426:31

Yeah.

Presenter26:31

Uh

Jamie Dornan26:40

You know, you're here, you're kind of at work here. Like, if Millie goes into labor, you need to. He was like, Son.

Jamie Dornan26:47

She wouldn't be going into active labour for at least seven or eight hours, by which time it'll be in Vancouver and it'll be handed over to someone else.

Presenter26:53

And that's the image of your dad says with the gin and tonic inside.

Jamie Dornan26:56

I mean, literally, it's unbelievable. And then Dulce was born, and three days later, we started filming. It was mad.

Presenter27:03

The film was hugely popular with audiences, but not with the critics. How did you respond to, react to the negative reviews?

Jamie Dornan27:11

Ahead?

Jamie Dornan27:12

You know, I'm coming off the back of career altering reviews for the fall and BAFTA nominations and all this sort of madness that the fall brought to just, um, ridicule almost. Actually w w w we went down to

Jamie Dornan27:27

Sam and Aaron, Sam Till Johnson and Aaron and her husband, their their place and they weren't there and we sort of um they let us have their place in the in the country and we sort of hid there for a while and just shut ourselves off from the world a bit and then

Jamie Dornan27:39

So it came out the other side. I mean, it just made so much money. Like, it made so much money. So, like, two and three were like green lit, like, overnight. So, it was like.

Presenter27:47

The population.

Jamie Dornan27:47

'Cause then you're like, all right, there's a bit of ridicule here and I'm not contractually doing too more of them and knowing that there'll be much more of that damnation to come.

Presenter28:00

Did you have mixed feelings, any regrets about taking the role on at any point?

Jamie Dornan28:05

You know, I I've just had very glowing reviews for recent work and there wouldn't be many of them that don't mention Fifty Shades in them. You know, a lot of reviews are like he's great, but lest we forget when he wasn't great here, like give us a chance.

Jamie Dornan28:20

But no, regret that I did them? No.

Presenter28:22

Jamie, it's time for disc number seven. What's next?

Jamie Dornan28:26

The Beatles are they have been a constant in my life and I love still to this day hearing their influence on other bands that I like.

Jamie Dornan28:38

This song just makes me feel happy and I think is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. This is uh Something by the Beatles.

Speaker 428:46

Cling in the way

Speaker 428:49

She moves.

Speaker 428:53

Attracts me like no other lover

Speaker 429:01

Something in the way she wooes me

Speaker 429:08

Don't wanna leave her now

Speaker 429:11

You know I believe in how

Presenter29:16

Something by the Beatles. Jamie Dornan, we've talked a lot about your dad Jim today and you lost him in 2021. He died of complications related to Covid and like so many families during that terrible time you'd been separated. You were in quarantine in Australia. You didn't get to say goodbye. That must have been so difficult.

Jamie Dornan29:38

Uh yeah, it was unimaginable. And then I had a job to start a few days later and couldn't really get out of that.

Presenter29:45

So that would have been the tourist.

Jamie Dornan29:47

I was the first Asia tourist and I had to just stay out in um Australia for you know, there for five months. I didn't see my sisters or anything in the world.

Presenter29:57

We I mean, how were you going to work in the middle of all that?

Jamie Dornan30:00

Uh wasn't easy. I think I just had to try to you know put the best version of yourself and and create a really mad T V show.

Presenter30:06

You know.

Presenter30:12

And it was that same year you lost your dad. Belfast came out. You were playing par. It was set in your hometown. It was.

Jamie Dornan30:15

Plus

Jamie Dornan30:18

I'm not sure.

Presenter30:19

The premiere must have been incredibly emotional for you.

Jamie Dornan30:22

Yeah, I think, you know, that it's almost like that movie was made for my dad. Like my dad would have just loved that film so much. But I do take comfort in the fact that he knew that I did it. Yeah. And he'd actually heard of the actors I was acting with, which was

Presenter30:33

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan30:37

Rare for him. You know, some people, their dad'll never tell them they love them, particularly to a son, or tell them that they're proud of them. And I don't think I ever had a f uh of you know, was ever with my dad or on the phone to my dad where he didn't tell me both of those things. So I feel like, you know, very fortunate there that um we were all showered with love and pride from him for all of our all of our lives.

Presenter31:02

Jamie, the time has come for me to send you off to the island. I'm about to do it. I wonder how you feel about the prospect?

Jamie Dornan31:05

Yeah.

Jamie Dornan31:09

I sort of would try to convince myself that I'm really capable in a situation like that and I'd be like, Oh yeah, what's this? I'm gonna like build this class little hut out of wood that I found and I'm gonna chop that down and I'm gonna cut stuff from a dinner and all this sort of stuff, but actually the reality is I'd be really clueless and I'd probably just sit in a bowl crying until I died.

Presenter31:33

I mean at least you've got your desks.

Jamie Dornan31:35

Yeah, I mean, that would keep me going for a while. I think what would happen is you'd actually get really bored of these eight songs and then you'd really resent the fact you ever.

Presenter31:41

And we resent the f

Jamie Dornan31:43

suggested them.

Presenter31:46

I don't know. You've got some classics here. I think you're going to be all right. Listen, and you've got one more to go.

Jamie Dornan31:50

Yes, I do.

Presenter31:51

One more disc before we cast you away, Jamie Dylan. What's it gonna be?

Jamie Dornan31:55

I always loved this song. I loved how he was talking about someone who just sees the world differently and only sees the positive and how we sort of there's a necessity for people like that in your life to lift you up. And I think it's one of those songs that I was always sort of trying to work out, like for me, who's this song about. And then it sort of took my dad dying for me to kind of realise that for me that person who sees the world differently and was just always radiating positivity was him. And at dad's memorial, which we had to wait a year and a half after he died to have, I made a speech, as did both of my sisters. Part of my reading was reading lyrics from this song. This is The Hole of the Moon by The Water Boys.

Speaker 432:43

Add flashes.

Speaker 432:48

You saw the plan, I wondered at in the world for years.

Speaker 432:57

While you just stayed in your room

Speaker 433:01

I saw the crescent

Speaker 433:06

You saw the whole of the moon.

Presenter33:12

The Hole of the Moon, The Water Boys. So Jamie Dornan, it's time. I'm going to cast you away to the island. I will give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book of your choice. What are you going for?

Jamie Dornan33:25

I'm going to take Where the Wild Things Are because it's just so much of it is about the escapism and being on an island, and it is a book that I.

Jamie Dornan33:36

force on my kids the most, I'm gonna say. Like I'll I'll play tricks where I'll be like, Oh, I can only find where the wild things are Like, No, no, no, no, we read that last night. I'm like, I can only find where the wild things are.

Jamie Dornan33:50

And our kids just love it, and I just love watching them love it. It's yours. You can also have a luxury item. What have you done for it?

Jamie Dornan33:58

Could you give me a golf ball and a golf club? Am I allowed both of those? Yeah.

Presenter34:02

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves?

Jamie Dornan34:08

Forever by The Beach Boys. But the one thing I'd really need to get me through is uh the thought of my wife and everything that she's given me and uh our family.

Presenter34:21

Jamie Dornan, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Jamie Dornan34:25

Thank you so much. It's been very emotional.

Jamie Dornan34:29

Thank you.

Presenter34:53

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jamie, and I hope he gets to perfect his golf on the island. Although, I'm a bit worried it might be a giant bunker. Oh well, we've cast away many actors, including Stephen Graham, Maxine Peake, and David Harewood, Gillian Anderson, Jamie's co-star in the fall, is in our back catalogue too. You can find all of these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram. The assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, and the producer was Paula McGinley. The series editor is John Gowdy.

Presenter35:25

Next time, my guest will be the photographer and writer Val Wilmer. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 135:44

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Speaker 135:57

Maybe some green tea to boost your brain power. Time's up. Or doing the plank to lower your blood pressure.

Speaker 136:06

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So to benefit your brain and body in ways you might not expect, here's just one thing you can do right now. Subscribe to the podcast on BBC Sounds.