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So without further ado, thank you very, very much, Sweaty Betty, do you visit their website, Sweaty BET.com, and use the code How to Fail for 20 percent off and now on with the show. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right.

This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist, Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. The actor Jamie Dornan once said that mass appreciation doesn't always equate to something good.

It's true, of course, but this is a man who has had to get used to mass appreciation, whether he likes it or not, starring as Christian Grey in all three of the 50 Shades of Grey movie adaptations brought him to the worldwide attention of millions of excitable fans who had devoured the E.L. James books on which the franchise was based. But Dornan has always been a multifaceted actor in the critically acclaimed BBC drama The Fall. His portrayal of Paul Spector, a serial killer with an incongruously happy family life, was extraordinary, both for its chilling nature and for the way it toyed with our preconceptions.

Later, he praised photographer Paul Conroy in a private war, the biopic of the late Great War correspondent Marie Colvin. It was done and recalled the most emotional job I will ever do. He and the real life Conroy are still friends. Despite his success, Dornan did not start out as an actor. He was born in Hollywood, the one in down, and was the third child of Lorna A.. And Jim, one of Ireland's leading obstetricians, a man who has delivered over 6000 babies after school in Belfast, Dornan became a model and a highly successful one at that.

The New York Times dubbed him the Golden Torso after he appeared in campaigns for Calvin Klein and Hugo Boss. And yet Dornan has said in the past that he never had much luck with the girls at school because he looked too young. His sisters friends called him cute, which he hated. Today, he is married to the musician Amelia Warner, and the couple have three daughters. They live their lives out of the public eye. And when Dallen is recognized back home in Northern Ireland, it is more often than not because someone wants to tell him that his father delivered them.

This suits him just fine. As he said in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph in 2014, nobody sane wants to be famous. Jamie Thorne.

And welcome to hydrofoil.

Thank you very much. So I don't know where to look there, but I got through the door.

You were visibly squirming and you actually blushing slightly. It's very sweet.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not someone who loves hearing praise about themselves. I think I find it very difficult. I find it embarrassing. I think I'm biased by praise.

I say. And do you feel today, given that quiet about it have to be insane to want to be famous?

I feel like off and I don't feel very famous. I only ever feel famous when I'm somewhere where people know I'm going to be. There's a response to that, to that understanding of the location, whether that's a premiere or whatever it is for a movie I've done.

And then you see people have come to support you and fellow cast, whatever it is, the movie itself, and you see a collective of people there for you and a hunger sometimes maybe for you that that's when it's real.

And all other times I don't get that. I don't feel like that. I don't think I put myself in a position to experience that. So I usually feel pretty sane because I don't feel that famous has ever got scary.

Your level of fame? No.

I mean, I remember saying I did this interview for, like, cheekier details or something before the first Fifty Shades came out and they said, what's your biggest fear with the movie coming out?

And it was nothing about how it be received, which we knew would be great for the people of love. The book and the total opposite of that for people who don't understand the book or for the movies, and that it was very true to love the response. But I remember saying I was scared of someone killing me on the red carpet.

Well, that was that was probably unexpected for the journalist. She was quite taken aback by it.

But at that time, I genuinely believe that I thought it was probably just going to kill me here, this dark place to put your mind.

But I must have believed it to say it.

Well, when you were thinking that, was that after you'd played Paul Spector in the fall? Yes. So my mind probably more open the darkness than it had been previously. A more accepting and more knowing what people are capable of maybe as a result of playing someone like that performance was so phenomenal.

Jamie, I loved the fall so, so much.

And you mentioned that that idea of going to quite a dark place, like how much research did you do into the mind of a serial killer? Because as I said in the introduction, one of the fascinating things was that Paul Spector existed as a family man alongside committing these brutal crimes.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny you said it there, like in terms of getting inside the mind of a serial killer at the. Our book I read was called Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, Alan Cubitt, who created the show, changed my life. He sent me a few different books. He sort of had recommended to read and I read them.

They're not hugely digestible books. I've got to say. You know, they're tough. They're not enjoyable to read, really.

They're not I couldn't put it down situations. You know, they're kind of I can't wait to put it down because I want to go to sleep in ten minutes. I don't want to go to sleep with this. In my mind, it's hugely beneficial to trying to build the character. Ontake not all aspects from these particular subjects that they're about and other guys that have been told to sort of look into beyond those books, take bits from them, really, but build on what Alan created and what I felt was appropriate to take from what I'd read, but make it its own thing, you know, because every one of these monsters does it their own way.

Much of the way Spector did it was on the page already.

And I think that aspect of it, that fact that he was a grief counselor by day and, you know, the strong family man, Alan and I argued about this.

I always felt that he did have love for his kids, particularly his daughter. There's a special bond there, Alan, and he probably right because he created it.

Only he really knows. But he felt that Spector wasn't capable of love.

But I always tried to insert love into those scenes with with the kids. And I think that's what made it all the darker. You know, we're seeing that juxtaposition between the loving family man and the serial killer.

I think that's what made it hard to watch for people.

You're surrounded by women in your life, aren't you?

From, you know, from birth to write this? They have only been surrounded by women at home.

What's it like being the father of three daughters? Because I often wonder how much of what we stereotypically think of wrongly as sort of girl stuff and boy stuff is innate. Sure.

Listen, I wouldn't have a clue how to parent a boy. Just wouldn't. It's not what I know.

All I know is it's three little magical beings that we share a room with that feel our every move. And there's been times where one kid, particularly our eldest, has been leaning more towards a sort of tomboyish attitude and been into things that you wouldn't classically expect a girl to be into.

Maybe. And that got me thinking that really is like they're shaped into, you know, being into girls things and boys things. Maybe it's not innate, but then that ends up just being a bit of a phase. I think I can only speak for my own kids and then they do fall in line with what's kind of expected of little girls a little bit. I mean, the eldest would be less so. I mean, the youngest we don't really know yet, but the middle one is definitely more girly and a sort of classic sense, sort of terrible phrase than the older one.

But society is so much, no matter how much we try to change the sort of goalposts in terms of like trying to tell people that one gender or the next we're miles off, but not affecting kids. You know, it's still everything is pink and blue as much as we try in our own home to not advocate that we can't control everything that they see and hear.

And when they're at school and play or whatever it is or watching TV, that influence is beyond our control all of the time. You know, I feel like I'm here to be a father to girls. I feel like that's my my calling, you know, having to say that's just what I have.

And I feel like it is meant. I do I feel like I'm meant to be a daddy to those three girls.

Tell me a bit about how you feel on failure generally, and then we all get on to your specific failures. But is it something that you've always embraced or that you find quite difficult to confront?

I think probably as I've got older, being more capable of dealing with it, kind of like everything in life, the older you get, the more capable you become. Learning along the way, I guess, is part of that. And I'm a believer in that with failure.

You know, you're sort of nothing without your failures and there's nobody who gets to any kind of considered high position or impressive position from the outside looking in who hasn't failed massively. That builds us. It makes us colors us. And it's essential.

And I, I think I wear my failures like a badge of honor a little bit because they're so fuckin many of them, you know, particularly as an actor, you know, there just is you know, there's very few people who are fresh out of the blocks. Just got a great gig. I mean, funnily enough, my first ever job was a brilliant gig. And then you realize that that's actually not really like that. And then you fail a lot in between.

But the stand your own way, better stead for when good things do eventually happen and sometimes they don't happen.

I have a career where vast majority I don't want to say fail, but maybe don't get to continue on. Path because of lack of work, this horrible statistics about doctors at any given moment, there's only like four or five percent employed to be employed at the moment during lockdown, a struggle sort of how to judge failure. Some people, especially in my game, where there's people who maybe consider that career failure because they're always striving to have the same career, someone else or better career and someone else when they left drama school or whatever it is, they felt that have a certain career and they don't.

But they have a career and they put food on the table and they provide and have a mortgage and all the things that people strive for. But in their head, it's a failure because they expected something else to themselves. But from the outside looking in, people are like, you're a huge success. You know, you're never wanted to work. You can provide. But everyone's version of success is personal to them, I think so. Everyone's failures personal to them.

You're so right.

And our expectations and how we express them to ourselves and our internal narrative, that's the key to being happier, I think, managing expectations so that you're not feeling disappointed when you don't reach it.

Exactly. But do you regret any of your fashion failures?

Jamie, I only ask myself because because there are quite a few paparazzi photos of you from the early days of your career when you were dating Keira Knightley, who I'm obsessed with, and you were wearing sort of seat belt belts and this kind of baggy jeans and vans, trainers.

And I don't like you making an ass and making belts, plural, because I had one seat belt belt. It's very infamous of a stylist. I work with what I'm doing stuff. Jean Young is a magician, amazing woman, and she is based in L.A. and she stuns me what I love to do these days. And she brings up that green belt so often it's hard to defend.

The indefensible wasn't glaringly bad at that time. I don't think they've both. I mean, I like to talk about another podcast on this because I don't know only if you criticize it and I'm kidding.

Of course, you are like my wife, obviously. Listen to a podcast. But she also listens to the halo, which I've listened to a bit myself. I know those girls have melodies come in sometimes chuckling and say they brought you up and they were sort of digging through what you're about to do right in front of me now, which is dreadful.

So I actually had a seatbelt belt. So you're OK. You're in good company. I remember being delighted with myself on the one day because also you wore baggy trousers then like baggy, big, dreadful looking jeans.

Levi's twisted. I remember buying those things and they were glass and they really, really weren't. I remember being with Carol and then we're walking through Camden and they were genuinely falling off my arse, which is kind of how I wore them anyway. But it was to the point where, I mean, it was like I needed help. And they're, you know, shining in the sunlight was a scream, awful shade of green seat belt belt.

And I thought, bingo, there we go. There's a job. Not only will serve a purpose. Look, it turns out I didn't.

It's a bit like when you were talking about how fatherhood is your meaning, like that seat belt was you were destines the two of you to find each other.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was pretty delighted when I lost it. I have to say, I don't know what became of it. That's one of those things you probably give to charity shop and they don't even put on their store. They're probably just like, no, listen, no one's going to want that.

You said in past interviews that Keira Knightley gave you very good advice on how to handle fame, not great fashion advice. But she did tell you, I think, to keep your childhood friends house.

Yeah, um, was good at that. You know, still is very close with Bonnie, who's your best friend from school. And, you know, she had a nightmare time of it when we were. Yeah. I mean, we were kids when we met, you know, she was literally eighteen I was twenty one when we met and seventeen years ago.

And I she's just gone all full time. The paparazzi were horrendous. You know, it really was it every single day leaving her apartment or my apartment and hiding in bushes and all that sort of stuff. It was kind of gross, wasn't kind of gross, was really, really gross and invasive and not fun for young, very, very young people to be going through for anyone to be going through really, but particularly vulnerable. Eighteen year old girl who's only trying to work out the world, you know, and then you've got to deal with that every day.

I didn't have that issue, I have to say, because I have always had the same group of kids from school. I just had them still at the same group and I mostly boys and a few girls from school that I am just, ah, sort of everything to me, really. So I'm very lucky and fortunate in that we're talking of school.

That brings us on to your first failure, which is your failure to do that well at school. And fun fact.

We both went to the same school. Oh, I am older than you.

So I don't think we ever coincided because I left in the third year. But you went to school and methods in Belfast. Yeah. So tell me what happened about at school.

I don't look.

Back in school and think that it was a failure because when I was at school, I felt that I was there to gain friends and play sport and sort of come out the other side with this sense of being part of a group and having a structure of friends in my life. I was very aware of that at school. I really felt like I should be. I want to be like friends with everyone. And it wasn't even to be popular. It was just to actually have friendship and probably protect the boys.

Because I have two sisters and I was always sort of longing for brothers, basically. Not that this might help my sisters. Brilliant, but you do as a part of you always thinks if you've only got one sex siblings, what would it be like to have the other? I really wasn't at school in my head to get an education that was just not terrible.

And I tell my kids very differently now as a parent. But I didn't see it as school being about that as much as my parents tried to drill into me, that that's very much what school is meant to be about. I didn't see it that way. And as a result, I did no work.

I really mean that in the truest sense of the word. No or I didn't. I don't say that any pride at all.

As I said before, it's not a message I will pass on to my kids.

But, you know, when it came to revision for stuff and your mates would always be like, you have done nothing, you have done just done nothing. I'm not ready for this exam. And I've become. No, I've done nothing. I mean, no, no, I'm serious.

I've literally, literally done nothing. I haven't opened a book. You know, I've had study time. My dad's comes in to check the Annihilator to make sure I was literally, like sort of making, you know, study graphs and coloring stuff in and, you know, mucking about in the game boy or something, you know, just anything but revision.

And the proof is in the pudding wee. But like, I didn't do very well in my exams and all my friends who said they hadn't done work but actually had done that better than me and then everyone else who worked very hard did a lot better than me.

I also had an issue of school. My exams were like I always felt like it was kind of just a memory test. A lot of the time you're being prepped for the particular questions that were going to come up, sometimes the exact questions that were going to come up and the teacher would kind of have a sense of what it was going to be, even for the state exams, not even for the in school, like the marks and stuff, by the way, which is an easy way.

I like I could have just learnt those answers and done the work and memorize stuff. You see, the relief of people in their exam paper came up. I would never even have the relief because I wouldn't even have bothered to learn and revise and remember all this stuff.

And I didn't do terribly at school like I did enough to pass my GCSE. I did enough to come back from my A-levels just with a bit of negotiating here and there. But I struggled with the sort of structure of our school and I felt that I would have potentially done better in a different school where whatever strengths they had were harnessed. We bit differently. A lot of good things to say about maths because as I say, I've still got all my best mates in the world from that school and from a couple other schools in Belfast.

But friends from when I was a kid.

But that whole structure of it with the sort of donning the black capes and the silly hats and putting this massive blockage between students and the teachers and making them so unapproachable and terrifying, I just don't think that's the way a school should be.

And I understand that that comes from trying to insert respect in the kids so they will respect these people who are in charge of you and you respect your elders. And she makes me do the opposite.

You have my respect.

If you smiled at me and knew my name and were wearing normal fucking clothes and not some fucking sinister black cape, do you know me?

Like, I just I've always really struggled with that.

You know, even when we early days when we were going to see some schools for our eldest to see this school, the headmaster was saying over here, very relaxed here.

You know, kids, it's all first name terms that I'm saying, all the right things I want to hear.

And I said something along those lines of like, if I just find it very strange of that sort of us and them thing that teachers at my school very much so that like, you know, I don't know how to say it really, because I am I did have a good time at school, but I it sounds like you, which is interesting because I wouldn't initially have thought this about you, but like you were a bit of a rebel.

I wouldn't say I was rebel. I was sort of maybe trying to get to that like I wasn't badly behaved school. But I did struggle with a lot of the sort of conforming at school and that whole thing of like if one of those teachers, the headmaster, that vice headmaster or whatever it is headmistress was walking down the corridor like there were so on you about your shirt being like an inch untucked or, you know, something your colour being up a little bit because you've sort of thrown it on after class or whatever.

So if you saw one of those teachers walking down the corridor, you were terrified.

That shouldn't be the case. You shouldn't be terrified. Of your teachers, I feel like I was always on my shirt on so I wasn't a bad person, but I struggled with that sort of conforming to the rules that that particular skill set for me and in the way they studied and the way you're harnessed in class, because I didn't think I was stupid, but I felt like I was made to feel stupid quite a lot at that school and the school I went to when you went to college, I was very much like, you're either going to be a doctor or a lawyer or you're going to work in business.

And I really genuinely nothing else talked about that was just the way it was and maybe slightly. But the time it was, too. But if you sort of altered the idea of doing anything outside of those three locations, you're kind of left out of the room. You just weren't listened to. Not that I was sitting there going, I want to be an actor. I really didn't think I could go on tour. So I want to be that's a that's a massive M for for a kid from Belfast.

I want to be the golden door. So it's not as if I get it. But I never felt stupid, but I felt that I had something to give maybe could have been harnessed better or seen maybe by teachers and stuff.

You know. So interesting talking to you about it because I had forgotten how terrifying Method's was from that perspective. My memory of it was very much I need to do exams to get approval. Yeah. And that was a kind of habit that shaped the rest of my life in a negative way because I thought if I just work hard, I'll get approval and that will make me feel better about myself. And obviously that never really happened.

My memory was much more because I've always spoken with this English accent that I didn't feel included or welcomed at all in my peer group.

So actually Massoudi for me was not about friends at all. It was about feeling really isolated and sad and probably terrified, as you say, because it was so regimented.

If we could switch your experience of my experience or we could combine the two issues, then yeah, it'd be like that. I mean, they'd be delighted with us.

We'd be like the perfect product that they've created the exam side of it.

My mother died just after my genius's and then four of my best mates were killed in a car accident or from my year at school the following summer. I wasn't in a great place. I've got to say in my head and that's when I was talking about we had these negotiations thought, OK, AmEx's. But my mom was dying the whole way through and I wasn't and I wasn't doing any work anyway.

But that had sort of become this like other huge factor when it came to working out what I would do next in terms of A-levels and stuff. And we came this deal that I would stay at school, do my A-levels, a Methodist board for two years, we had a board department. It's actually quite good if you come for school your whole school life as a day people and there's a boarding department at that school. You're always fascinated by what goes on in there when they go behind that door, what happens down there is a whole other world that you just aren't privy to.

So you get to do that once you're a bit more sure of yourself and you're 16, 17, 18, and you're probably at the right end of the totem pole in terms of what happens in boarding and the bullying that goes on at every boarding school, probably. And I played rugby and stuff and that was a big help in boarding to go in and be in the rugby team. You knew you weren't going to get messed up, I to be honest, so I didn't do well.

I was about to say that, OK, I didn't do it, I think. But I got enough to get into a university that I didn't want to go to, but I was sort of forced to go, not forced to go to. But like it just seemed like the done thing. Like what we're saying about that type of school is like you choose the right A-levels to stay in the same path, to get to the certain goal, which always struck me as quite a boring goal.

And the only thing I ever, ever knew about myself growing up was that I didn't want to work in an office.

That's the only thing I've ever truly known about myself. I just don't have the right patience, aptitude. I don't really know how to categorize it, but I just knew that they didn't wanna do that. Not saying that means I wanted to be an actor or anything else frivolousness up, but I knew that I didn't want to do that. And all of these things I was being led towards were kind of pushing me in that direction. So I didn't do very well many levels.

And then I went to uni that I kind of when we went to because I got in to the marketing degree and absolutely no interest, you know, my school would have been kind of happy with that because it's something that could end in a sort of relatively serious job. And the whole time I felt like I was sort of doing making those decisions against my will.

I guess that sort of comes back to in terms of why I think it ended up being good for me, sort of feeling at school as how they worked. Had I really taken those exams seriously, those mock exams was your taxes, your A-levels, I mean, even A-levels. I swear to God, I'm not doing it to sound. It's not even cool. Even if I didn't do any work for me, there was nothing.

I mean, literally nothing. I went to uni. I went to nine hours of uni, five of them and freshers week. So then I spent eight months and I went to four hours of university and eight months I played rugby four days a week and drank a lot. I had a good time, I've got to say, but I knew I wasn't on the right path had I done better my A-levels and then gone to uni. And then of course, I really wanted to do and done very well and come out of a good degree.

I'd be in a very different path. I just wouldn't be happy.

So actually that failure at school for me, not for everyone, obviously, but for me, worked to my favor in a really big way.

So I want to come back to what happened next.

But I just want to pause and acknowledge what you went through as a 16 year old with your mother dying and then your friends die in a car crash. And I'm so, so sorry. And how do you deal with that grief at that age?

I had counselling very open to that. I didn't actually until the accident, I don't think, which is thirteen months after my mum died, which had a huge impact on the entire country, really. It was a very big, horrific event, but particularly, you know, my friendship group, obviously that's not true. I had had better counselling after Mum died before that and then the album and I had more counselling because you don't really have a clue.

You sort of don't have a clue what's going on in the world anyway when you're sixteen, seventeen. And it's a lot of change happening at that time in your life and a lot of very big decisions are being made about your future at that age. And weirdly, in a way, maybe not being able to totally focus on that in a way that other kids may have been. I was a benefit to me in hindsight, if you're trying to claw to take any kind of positive out of such a horrendous situation.

But it was so bleak clearly and affect you every day. I mean, actually, I've had a very tearful week, honestly, about my mom particularly. I'm writing a script at the moment and we've just finished the first draft and I going through it and second drafting. I'm running with a very friend of mine and we are two main sort of protagonists in the movie are kids who. Lost her parents when they're teenagers and so much of it I haven't even been accepting of the fact that that happened to me so weird.

And then I finish it day and I'm like writing about these kids, talking to each other, trying to help each other through what that grief must be like. And I've been sort of blanking it, I guess, as some sort of defense mechanism probably, and then feeling sort of bereft at the end of the day. And my writing partner will see it. He'll be like, you've got to stop and I'll be OK. And then I'll, like, cry for an hour.

It's been the modest experience, but also quite cathartic and good.

You know, ultimately, I think I don't want to upset you further, but I also I'm aware that when people lose someone and they're in the public eye, that they often get asked about the experience of that loss for them and what happened afterwards. But I just wanted to offer a chance for you to say what your mum was like.

I mean, she was incredible. I mean, very beautiful, truly beautiful, like an arrestingly beautiful looking woman, an amazing smile, very quick witted, incredibly glamorous. You know, my mom's from a farm in Portadown, but you wouldn't know it.

Talking to my whole family, like my sister, saying very different to me and my mom did. My dad was sort of inherited the slightly posh accent thing.

And my mum really considering she grew up in to of dynamic America far away and borderline accent, but it was all part of the way she carried herself, the sort of glamour that she had. And it's a very odd thing. And another very nice thing to have to admit that there's many aspects of my mum they don't remember truly just don't have a very strong recollection. And I use my sisters a lot and my dad to try to build on the memories I have of mum because they're fleeting for me, to be honest.

And this is in a time your mum died and they did this before you filmed absolutely everything in your film.

And, you know, there's not a huge amount of sort of documentary footage that's of my mum. So and I love it. Like when something does come into my mind, I get the little nugget that comes into my mind of something I had forgotten that my sister will mention to me or something. And and I love that. And then I try to harness that as best I can, make sure I don't forget that again. My dad's very private loves, you know, the line of work I fall into and everything, but my mum would have really got a serious kick out of it.

1998 then was a time of extraordinary transition and grief for me personally and politically.

A lot happened in Northern Ireland. I see the signs, the Good Friday Agreement. I know what it was like living there then.

But I would love to know what your experience was of going to school in Belfast and how far away you are of what is diminishing now referred to as the troubles.

Yeah, there's no Mick that makes it sound the troubles. I've never shied away from high middle class. My upbringing was it was about as middle class as you can get in the north of Ireland. But in the same breath, you're grown up in Belfast and in school in the middle of Belfast. And there's no one who grew up or lived in a country during those times who wasn't affected by the troubles.

No matter what your situation was, even things like how normal, trying to plan to go into town obviously before mobile phones and stuff on a Saturday, it was meditate McDonalds in the centre of town just to wander around on a Saturday afternoon and they amount the times it phoned the house phone of your friend because it's in the news there's a bomb scare. I mean, that was kind of in my head every weekend as I guess. Did you see the.

Yeah, there's a there's a bomb scare there. So not going into town today.

I mean, I didn't know honestly how commonplace that sentence was. And, you know, my dad worked at the Royal Albert Hall life, which is, you know, on the Falls Road in West Belfast and delivered, as you said at the start of this, over 6000 babies in Northern Ireland. That's not 6000 Catholic babies, 6000 Protestant babies. Others have a real mix of everything.

So I feel like I was brought up in a very liberal household where religion was very rarely mentioned. And we sort of went to church a little bit in the beginning of our lives. I don't think I went after the age of seven and I think it was only as talking to Dad and I that it was only because my mom and my dad's parents were very religious and it was sort of keeping up appearances with them still around that we kept that up.

And I never grew up feeling that I was on one side or the other. It didn't understand that. And I see a very good thing about Matadi was it was very mixed when most people, people here are in England or anywhere else they hear mixed. I think you mean boy girl. But it was very mixed Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, many other denominations, which was a great thing.

If I think of my best mates from school, I mean, literally 50 50, probably slightly edging more Catholic.

And we all grew up in a generation where you wanted to distance yourself from even that, even knowing what each other are, you know, but truth be told, it's still totally divided. It's only three percent of schools are segregated and there's still areas that Catholics will never live in Paris.

Protestants never live in particular, and only really in the working class areas. So as much as the Good Friday Agreement was a huge thing, and obviously it's been an incredible marking for the country. There's still deep division there and a very complicated place.

It's so interesting to hear you talk about religion, because I remember I ended up going to school in England and I remember the first time I heard classmates talking openly about what religion they were.

And I was so shocked because in the north of Ireland, it carried such terrible profundity, like you would never speak openly about it for fear of something happening. I totally relate to that. And you're right, that message was mixed. But I remember at Methodist because I was a weekly boarder and I would walk to the bus station to get the bus back home on a Saturday.

And I would walk past Europa Hotel, which is infamous, has been the most bombed hotel in Europe. And I remember this one time there'd been a bomb the night before. Every single window had shattered of the hotel and they were just these hulking, metal, warped, unrecognizable masses that had been cars.

And that was just normal.

Sure. I know. I know it is it is one of those things like when you know, again, when people, particularly in states, when you say where you're from, they're like, oh my God, like, how did you get out alive?

And if you see, like, imagery neut of what was our normal news, yes.

It blows your mind. I mean, it really you cannot believe what you see in the rioting. And the police didn't drive normal cars that drove this thing.

They call them meat wagons as big armoured Land Rovers and people petrol bomb and each other over sort of barricades.

And it was you didn't blink.

It didn't blink. Watching that in the 90s and 80s and 90s, from the time that I remember, it was just so normal. And, you know, you realise how crazy it was.

Yeah. You know, and how much impact it has. I'm really bad at timekeeping, but I'm just so fascinated by everything you say that I'm so sorry.

We only just on one failure.

But let's move on to your this is how you write it. Failure to be very good in a TV show called Once Upon a Time, resulting in being killed off after nine episodes.

Before we get to that, tell us how you got into acting, because your lovely sister, Jess, who is basically how we've organized this podcast, who I know and I'm so grateful to her, she claims that it's all because of her and she got you into model behavior, a channel for reality TV show, right?

Yes, I yeah. Let's let's give her the due credit there. She did a doctor at school at a youth theater back home to adopt a bit of drama at home, too. So it's not like it was alien to me at school. By the time it came to sixth year, you couldn't be active in the drama department and also play rugby at a particular level because rehearsals for plays are at the same time as training, basically. So I did drama GCSE and Adonal Productions up until that point and it came to secure.

I basically had a choice and I chose rugby. I don't regret that for a second that time of my life be. But it meant that I was sort of hadn't really featured in my sort of late teens in any sort of dramatic sense. But I'd always loved it and knew I could do it a bit. And you had something in me to give in that department, let's say.

And when I dropped out of uni after a year and I said to my dad, I want to go to London, this is why I don't know, I had this belief that something good would happen if I went to London.

So I sort of convinced my dad to let me go and secure a job in a pub. Before I went there, I knew I had this job that Michael Tattersall's Tavern in Knightsbridge, which I believe is still there. And I worked there for six months. In that summer, they dropped out of uni. My dad just wanted me to do anything, anything that was constructive, a low point. One day he came back and I drank a lot that summer.

Didn't achieve a lot, I have to say.

And one day a D strong and taken all the strength of a tennis racket that had broken a string on Hudnut restrung. It had just taken off string. Right. And that was like what you do today.

And I was just stunning tennis the with a hole in it saying I took all the strings of this, I was going to get it. And then he sort of took me away for a chap. He called me a waster. Actually, I remember very clearly, he said it was a waster and I didn't disagree with them.

I was a waster that somehow I was really achieving nothing very evident to the rest of my family that I was wasting everything away. Not everything was nothing. I had nothing to waste, but like, I was just not achieving anything. And yes, my sister was just scrabbling around.

Was Lisa, my other sister, just trying to help me find some motivation and just saw this ad for like some open casting for some. This is very early days of even.

I mean, I've sort of never even thought of that as reality TV show, but I guess it was. But I did so badly in it. I guess it's another failure that I didn't get to the point where it felt like a reality TV show. So I went to this audition for the same model behavior. Last thing in the world I want to do is model. I mean, no kid grows up. Maybe they do know. Certainly I didn't I wasn't a kid growing up out of high school and I loved having a photograph taken for money.

But anyway, it was something to do. And I convinced my mate Andrew Hazard to come with me.

So I'm going to give Hazard a bit of credit here, because Jassa told me to go inside the WELI Park Hotel, which is beside Matheney on the Malone Road. And on the way there I called him and had to be there at AM, which in those days was so early. No, that I've got three kids. That is a massive layon, but then it's so early and I called him like eight forty five. I said, I'll pick you up in ten minutes.

No I'm not coming. I'm pleased. Please. Like my sister's going to kill me if I don't go to this thing. I don't want to go, I don't want to go knackered. I'm still sleeping at half. Right. So I'm going to turn around and just go home and like fuck this. Like, it's just who wants to be a model anyway? And then there's someone. Mary, I've heard my sister, you know, and my dad called me.

Wistar was something to fill the day.

Even if I just said that I went to that thing and I filled the data down that I remember, I was like, I'm going to turn back and then I'm going to give has a role model. I called them back. So, yes, you really need to do this for me. My family are going to kill me if I don't turn up for this thing to pick me up in five minutes.

So I didn't pick them up and I had he said no again, I really genuine turned anyway, long story short, went dead.

All right. I got through the Belfast.

Part of it was the greatest of respect, isn't a huge achievement and got through to it didn't get didn't make it through the next day and it came back the next day.

And then the whole thing was a little divine nitpicked like six people from Ireland. There wasn't one in Dublin. So this was all Ireland rind or whatever. So the few dobs up and stuff and then up in a few dobs and a few people from the north or went to London, that was whole thing about London. And there was like people from Manchester and Birmingham and Glasgow and like this. And there was probably 40 of us and there were 20 and then the ten and those ten people then lived in an apartment together and went out on like castings again.

And I got nowhere near I got half a day in London or something that was booted I. But I was very tenacious, I guess, and I don't really remember having this in me, but I remember taking the email of one of the judges, Kim von Teckman, who was one of the judges, who's also an agent at Select. And I said, listen, do you think I could do this? And she was kind of like, you know, basically call us if you ever come to London.

And I took that as like, oh, wow, they want me to go to London and be a model and my dad will be happy because it's something.

So then I knew it wouldn't be something straight away.

And there was all this contractual stuff that I couldn't do it right away because I've been part of the show and had to wait for their big winner before you got a contract with Selectwoman Symbolics.

So I went back home and said, look, dad, I think if I can get myself a job in a pub, I have this contact now, this modeling agency, I could probably do that and fair play to him like he agreed to let me do that.

So basically, if I hadn't done that, that wouldn't have led to being an actor. So, you know, if I hadn't made that first step, Jessica hadn't, you know, suggested if Hazard hadn't answered the phone, I wouldn't be out here, basically.

And if you hadn't been good looking enough, did you think you were good looking? No way.

No, no, no. I thought I looked like I've said this before. I still think this and I look like a thumb. If I don't have a beard, I look like a like a weasel.

I think so. Now, I've never been led to believe that I was good looking at the stage.

And when you started getting all these sheets and campaigns for on and Calvin Klein, did you then think I'm good looking or did it not percolate for me?

I never felt that I was the best looking guy and that's why I was getting these jobs. It's all about having the right look for the time or whatever it is, but also for me, I think, and it harks back to what I've said about school. And like people at the top of every industry, from every company you can think of, there's just people and they want good conversation and they respond to other human beings. I feel like my biggest asset was like I tend to get on pretty well with people, which is in a way from what school is trying to tell us of.

Important people are out of reach. You can't talk to them like they're humans. You can.

And I don't care what reputation this photographer I've been told I'm working with and, you know, I'm like, it's just a fucking person.

And he just and I feel like my modelling career, I did inordinately well in it and I didn't expect to be. I think a lot of that was going to I worked with a lot of the same people repetitively, big photographers, same fashion. So that was at the same sort of campaigns with the same two or three very big clients. But it was all because by that stage I just got on, well, the people and they know it and they know what you're getting, rather like, oh, he's the best person for the job.

That's not what it was about.

So I keep getting distracted by tangents. But there's so much I was asking, did you or do you ever feel objectified? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, definitely not my probably so much, but certainly when I was modelling. Yeah, yeah. Because that's exactly what's happening. Yeah.

You're being objectified, you're an object. And again, that's why, you know, I was always sort of battling against that and trying to make it not that are not like this thing we've hired to look pretty laying on the fucking sofa, you know what I mean?

Like, I would probably be like, oh, no, can we not have this experience where we all talk? And you don't just tell me where to put my face and push me around the place? I guess there's a lot of time in that world. I always just try to sort of make it fun because I didn't like it. I today I hate getting my photograph taken and very uncomfortable with it. And I wasn't a good model. I did well from it, but I wasn't good at it, I don't think.

And the whole Fifty Shades of Grey thing and the idea that you are countless women's and men's heartthrob, that if we still had posters, that would be posters of you blue tacked up on sort of teenage girls, parents walls and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah. How does that sit with you? Because that's also objectification.

Any actor, whatever is put themselves in opposition. I guess, like, you know, my sisters got pictures of Johnny Depp on their will, and that's just Brad Pitt for me. Brad Pitt.

Yeah.

I mean, I had I had will be players on my wall and then I had a black and white, black and white picture of Liv Tyler. That is a kiss before I went to sleep every night. Oh my God, that's so sweet. And I was once with someone listen, I was once with someone who knew that story and she was a friend of hers and she was get on the phone here and she put me on the phone to fucking Liv Tyler.

And she's like, oh my God, I heard your story and used to kiss me. I was like, oh, fuck this.

No idea what to say to her. Yeah.

I mean, objectification is sadly a bit of a part of it comes with the territory, I think of.

OK, now tell me about Once Upon a Time TV show. Have you ever seen multiple her.

OK, I should have been a really good interviewer and watched it, but I haven't ever seen it. No, sorry.

So listen, I guess I was the point in my career where my first ever job, I did my first ever audition. I had an agent for five days and my first audition was for. As Marie Antoinette and I got it, and it was a decent part, not a huge part, but like quite integral to the whole thing.

And I remember thinking, fuck, this is hardly just a straight off the path. I've got this great job.

Saffir literally just won an Academy Award for Lost in Translation. So much hype about the movie. It's a big studio movie at Sony. And I think this is class cut to, you know, barely working for the next eight years. But in that time I was modeling. So I had this kind of situation of being able to afford to not be devastated if I didn't do something, go my way, which were so, so many and I hadn't worked in a while.

I was feeling a bit lower, but I was thinking that maybe just didn't really want to do it anymore. You know, I had this very good reputation.

You know, I was like the best agent in London, those of CIA and L.A. And on paper, it looked like I was so set, but I wasn't working and I was out there for pilot season, which is a pretty grim environment to spend time in, which is just like, you know, herded around like cattle in L.A. trying to score any gig. And it's such a strange thing because you can get a pilot and just be delighted because it's guaranteed money.

It might not even get picked up, but you sign your life away for five years and then sometimes you get people who do pick one of those pilots and it Doiron for five years. And it's a horror show of a production and they're locked in and actually they're better than that or whatever it is.

You get George Clooney, the name pilots that didn't get picked up and that's nine years of your life because you can't sign up to more than one pilot. So it's a horrible environment.

And everyone you're all sitting in a room together, a load of guys who look almost identical to you, all trying to achieve the same thing. And those other pilot season, you're always depressed or in pilot season anyway. And I was there and to stave off the depression, brought my girlfriend at the time with me, know my wife, I was like, listen, will you come and be there with me? Because I just will need you to go through this.

I also proposed to her in L.A. in that time, which made everything better. Where did you propose our franchise? In L.A., where we met. Did you get any money? I did.

I did the whole shebang, you know, but I was in L.A. and I hadn't really been doing very well with the auditions. I hate auditioning. I'm terrible auditioning. And I suddenly got this call like I auditioned for this thing once upon a time that there was a lot of hype about was a pilot that wanted to because ABC production, Eddie Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, who were two of the main writers and lost, there's a lot of hype about it.

And they basically got it and was truly on the belief that it changed my life. And it did. And I feel like at that time I really hadn't worked in a long time. And I was on the show that morning.

Bill came back, shot the pilot in Vancouver. I came back and then you've got this sort of horrible two, three month wait to find out that the pilot get picked up. And you've signed on to be in it for five or six, seven years. I can't remember what it was.

And I got a phone call that the pilot being picked up on my interview, happy days, getting paid a lot of money to be in the show is on a big network show.

And my it was like be picked up. But they're going to kill your character off pretty early.

Right? OK, they tried to spin it like it was like a story thing.

They were always going to kill one of the characters off because that's what happens in shows. I know. I know that like, it was probably just bollocks. You know, the test, the shit out of those pilots. So test audience, I mean, I think probably everyone was like, get rid of that.

And I always felt very uncomfortable in the role. I felt like I wasn't this guy. I didn't really know what to do with it. Can we hang my hat on anything with them? I don't know why. So I felt there wasn't very good at it.

So then I had this strange thing of like having to go back and shoot eight more episodes, but knowing it was going to be over for me and really, truly believing that my world kind of ended. I remember going to my flatmate Jonesy at the time it was his wee brother's birthday. We're going for pints in Notting Hill somewhere. I remember I was a bit of a hangover sitting with Millie and crying and being like, I can't I can't see people.

I'm so embarrassed by it all because everyone's going to be like, what's up with your show as it got picked up? Are you got are you moving to Vancouver? And I was going to have to be like, you're going.

But I'm, you know, won't be going for as long as I thought maybe anyway, cut to I get killed off by then the fall comes my way. I just if I would, I would have been on the show for seven years.

I wouldn't have been able to do the fall. So actually, again, it's a failure that ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. But at the time, I would never have believed you.

If you see two things I want is thank you so much for talking honestly about what it's like to be an actor who fails, because I think a lot of actors listen to this podcast, which I'm very grateful for. And it's super helpful, I think, to hear that, to hear about the other side of fame and glitz and success, that actually there is all this stuff that I imagine is very difficult not to take personally, because it's you that's being judged at the end of the day.

Once you get over that, that's that's huge. I think my sister told you I nearly wrote one of my failures was not being as eloquent as the Zeta Jones. Listen to her with the. And she's got like twenty two or something. I think she just turned 22.

So she's amazing and I just could never spoken about what we do with such poise and decorum as she does and elegance. I still can't clearly, as I ramble on here, I like that, too. I like hearing what other actors because it's brutal. It's really tough, like it's really tough. And I feel so fortunate to be in the position I am now and have a choice over the work I do and have lots of work come my way because I've been there have been at the other side of it where that isn't the case.

And it's really challenges your idea of your own self-worth. If you've really committed to doing something and that thing isn't working for you, you really question yourself.

You know, the second thing I wanted to say is that I know that you are an atheist. At least that's what Wikipedia said. I'm hoping it's correct.

Yeah. I mean, I guess I lean more towards agnostic nightlong kind of way.

But in the last few years of maybe more towards a slightly softer version, one of the things that I was going to ask you, which I guess might explain some of that, is that a couple of times you said stuff that makes me feel that you believe in destiny, that you were destined to be a father of your three girls that actually being killed off and once upon a time led you to the fall.

Yeah.

Is that accurate, do you think? Yeah, but I just wouldn't staple any of that to religion. Yeah, probably for me personally, just like those little snippets of the pick up along the way. And like someone just once said to me, that saying of what's for you will pass you by. And there's certain things you hear and just really has stuck with me. And it makes all your feelings of which there have been many and will continue to be way more palatable, digestible.

You know, listen, I've had that with jobs, you know, the jobs that I've turned down and have become like the at the following year.

And I'm like, shit, shit, I've done that. And then someone else comes along that you wouldn't have been able to do. You know, I think you have to apply that to the vocation that I'm in.

I sort of believe that you're all a bit of a path. These challenges are put in your way. Are these great things that happen that are all sort of for you based on something that like if it's not for you, won't land in your lap type thing? I feel like I don't consider it too much. I don't look into too much once that event happens, like once I do have three girls or once I do get this job because I didn't do well in that job.

I'm very accepting of it. And I then sort of tell myself that it was kind of like all part of the plan. And I'm maybe aware that there's a bit of a path, but I'm not like really zeroed in on it and I don't talk about it a lot.

Yeah, I think that makes total sense that you can just attach meaning to something retrospectively. I mean, that's definitely the way that I choose to live, because otherwise sadness would happen for no reason.

Yeah. And then you'd also just be inside your head too much. And I always try not to be really heavy and I'm always trying to get outside of my own head. And actually having kids is the best thing for that. It's the best thing for that through lockdown, particularly three months of having a focus that isn't going on based purely on what's good for you.

Works for me. You know, Needell, if I spent too much time on it, I get freaked out.

I know it's very exciting for me because this is the first interview that I've done post Lockton, which is face to face. Right. I see. I feel like I've lost all capacity for small talk of social interaction. So this is going OK.

And we're we're holding the Amazon delivery drivers around for like minutes is like I've got I've got no no here. Tell me. Come here. Where you were. Where are you going, though?

And your kids were, you know, just like desperate for for a chat. It's been a strange time.

Your final failure is your failure to sit still, which is such a charming chase.

However, I don't think I feel like I've been battling it a wee bit here because I do have to sit still. It's funny, when I said to my wife this morning before I came, she said to just say that she knew I had decided on the first to you.

What did you decide for the third year? And I said, because I had plenty of options. Obviously, I said a failure to sit still. And she said, Did you say you could add on and quiet?

And I said, Right, I'm going to defend myself away. But your blood test on all the time as an actor, you have to have medical before every job if you're a lead and something.

And if the production can't really continue with your health being in check, then you need to do these medicals and sometimes a really thorough and you're on a fucking treadmill or hooked up to all these pads and have a mask on sometimes of testing you for very specific things like, you know, illegal drugs and all kinds of stuff. Right.

You go through and it's kind of great because you get like a free medical every year. A proper checkup, and sometimes it's much less and that sometimes it's a cough and I was told not to go, but in a very early medical I have and then I've had it done a few times since my bloods were tested for adrenaline and had very high levels of adrenaline in my system.

So that is my excuse for what I feel is struggling to sit still and to be still and sometimes maybe to be quiet. I'm a terrible singer, like I know many times I'm okay singer. But like what I mean, as I'm terrible, like I do it all the time and I'm probably a bit of a nightmare to be around a lot of time because of that. I think I'd make a lot of noise and I move a lot. And I'm one of those people who really genuinely struggles.

And as I've exercised when I was younger, our sport, Sportelli, rugby and stuff, I got that out of my system. So it probably was a bit calmer. But as you get older and you've got kids and as much as you're running about after them, I'm not running right after ball or rolling with the ball.

So it's a strange thing. Now, if I don't run or work out or play football or whatever it is, I'm way worse when it comes to a certain time, particularly around five. My wife calls it showed by me time, which is like somebody in your life is like something you'd apply to your toddlers.

Everyone I've lived with is acutely aware of the situation and that's usually around that time of the day, something like my adrenaline levels, blood sugar levels, whatever. I go a bit hyper or in that time.

That's fascinating. And then what happens to you after the spike?

Do you go to the crash? Yeah, I will sometimes have a bit of a crash. I have quite low lows, I have to say. I think and that's related to everything I'm saying with blood and stuff. And I'm on form person most of the time. You know, I don't think anyone would think of me as someone who again made trying to not be inside my head a lot. I try to not be inside my head a lot.

I'm trying to communicate with people often what's for my wife.

Like she is an only child and it's a very calm person and like, calm a lot of time. And probably I'm not ideal. The game is I've been writing this script that we've kind of finished. I've been in a room with him for a couple of weeks. He's a very close friend anyway, but he's never spent that type of time with me. And, you know, him and my wife are very close and Conor is kind of right now.

And I was like we came up after a couple of days in my office together. And to me, like, how do you live with him? And she was like, I know.

I was like, you know what, you guys, I'm standing here. I'm like, I guess I'm not aware of how annoying it can be, but I think it is.

So is going to the theater. You're right. Yeah.

Nightmare. Especially those old theaters where there's no leg room and stuff. Tell you what the hardest things was in the fall because I've made a choice to play him very still.

It was a nightmare for me. And then by the third series, it's pretty much been a whole series in a hospital bed. A massive challenge again for me. Give the props, guys. Come in and say to me, every time you keep moving, every time you move, you have to replace us. And I'm so sorry.

I'm really trying to try not to do. It's got terrible. And that's something I've always had.

I believe so. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, squirmy. Jamie, active child. You're an active man. Yeah. Squirmy.

And you've done very well today. I have to say, it doesn't feel rude at all. It feels like you're part of your expression.

Yeah. I think it has become that you know. But no, when I see it I mean oh my God, what is wrong with you. You know, see like a like an injury of myself. I'm like a red carpet. So I am looking at rocking back and forth like I'm in some, like, asylum. It's smart, you know, thank God this isn't on camera. I still hate hearing my voice. I hate seeing myself being myself.

And I don't love watching myself act. It's much easier if I'm watching myself in something good because you're usually better if it's something it's well written. Great words make great actors, as O'Toole said, were huge believer in that. And that's OK. But watching me be myself, I cannot stand it. It's like, what are you doing? It's just a weight in that voice. Oh my God. You know, your Neasden that I just can't believe how kinetic I am.

So I think that shows that you are the polar opposite of a narcissist, which is a great thing. But I've watched your many shows. I've never noticed the squirming.

You were you were an impeccable chat gas device that you have that down pat like you're so good at it, having just the right anecdote. I'm being sort of friendly and funny and engaging. It's a skill being a good I guess I imagine a thanks.

I know that's on the host. I reckon. I think Graham Norton the best in the world at that. I totally agree.

And I love every single one of your appearances. Look, thank you. The walking one. Thank you.

That is that comes up a lot of people who don't know me. It's very funny. I think it was the first time ever that Graham Norton and I it's amazing how many times I. I mean, I'm still very aware of my work and still very uncomfortable with the way I work. In fact, today I parked my car over there down the street, and I got to the car. I went, fuck, I'm like 50 yards from your house.

And what if you're looking out? And the first impression you have with me is we're going to get this.

Like I was like she's going to be like, oh, Jesus. I look at this guy.

I was tiptoeing my brain somewhere up the fucking road. So I was delighted when you haven't seen me standing in the door. I thought, if I can get the lawyer quick enough and then regular, I ended up for an hour and a half. I have no lights.

And I'm basically for anyone who hasn't seen that great noise festival, I highly recommend it. And secondly, Jamie was talking about how you naturally walk on your toes. Yeah.

You want to see are one half. You're not quite one or two. One half the time this comes out. She is on her toes the entire time. Oh, well, OK. It is something within me that they're inheriting and I'm, I feel terrible about it. But yeah, I was basically taught when I had like dance lessons for something that you actually meant to sort of you said, you know, it's like walking, you know, your heel to toe.

And I think what you used to me so. Yeah, yeah. Mr Juncker, I'm not as funny on New Year's Eve. We're with our best friends and we were, you know, drunk. And, you know, you say all these lovely things.

At the stroke of midnight, they turn to me and I was like, I think I five movies come on in. Twenty twenty. I said, I think it's just twenty twenty. It's going to be a great year for me.

Cut to the worst year of all time for absolutely everyone except like, you know, whoever owns Netflix. Yeah. It was this weird thing and actually a part of me is upset is like not getting to sit on Graham's sofa, promote some of the movies which I will hopefully get to some pain. And that whole remote thing that he was doing, I just it was hard. It wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't quite working.

I felt sorry for like I Paul Mesko had me early on, like at the office. It'd be like his first time doing the show and he's like, you know, sat in the slot and make me feel sorry for.

Are you friends with Paul myself just because you're both Irish? Listen, I'm on my best mates.

No, no, listen.

I reached out, reached out. That's an American thing to say. As my agent says at the time, I text him again.

Listen, Ireland's the smallest place in the world, so it is not six degrees of separation in Ireland. It's one, two, maybe one of the big emitters of argument here.

So I said, that's Paul, if it's OK for me to to get in touch. So I did. So now I'm in touch with them. You know, sometimes you want someone who's just compelled. And I find myself I think we should do that more in my game because everyone is so accessible. I've never had a situation yet where I've been moved by someone's performance or a director on something that I haven't been able to get in touch with. You know, if you've good representation, you can do that.

And it's I think it's a good thing. And it's something I'm doing more of now because it doesn't happen to me loads. But it certainly has happened to me from people that you'd never expect that are seeing. Usually it's the fall, you know, very you know, Heidi, actors get in touch. And I'm like, oh, well, like, I've never done that.

So I'm going to do that more because I think it's nice to hear it from peers like Sam. By the way, what you did, Matt, was phenomenal. And I just want you to know that might mean nothing coming from me that I'm telling you that I'd like you to know that I think it's right that you know, that also, who better to guide him through instant fanatical heartthrob status then?

Yeah, I mean, it feels even bigger for him, I think, because we're all in lockdown. Lockdown. The obsession began with that show.

And it must just be so strange for him to be feeling that all through his phone and on his laptop and not in reality.

It's probably fucking good for him, to be honest, you know, that that's the case.

But he's going to get a proper shock when the pubs open and the open by the time this is he's probably been kidnapped or something by Naipaul, to be honest, all the time this comes out, there'll be people see him and just jump on them for all of our Jamie Dornan inveterate squirm.

Yes. I never noticed. Yeah, well, I think you're just such a lovely, interesting, warm person, and I can't thank you enough for coming on high to fail. Thank you. I can't wait to fail many more times, so I get to come on again.

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