Failure Throwback: Jamie Dornan

I’m revisiting some of my favourite episodes this Christmas. This week it’s Jamie Dornan, whose episode went out when we were in deepest, darkest lockdown, on 24th November 2020. This is what I wrote at the time: You’ll know Jamie from starring on our screens in The Fall, Fifty Shades of Grey, and more recently The Tourist. He joins me to talk about failures in acting, failures at school and a failure to sit still. We also discuss growing up in Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, male objectification, the death of his beloved mother from cancer at the age of 16 and the loss of four friends in a car crash shortly afterwards. We talk about grief, therapy and what it means to be a father. And we talk about why he walks on his tiptoes. HOW TO FAIL PRESENTED BY HAYU LIVE TOUR tickets: www.fane.co.uk/how-to-fail Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

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• 0:45Elizabeth Day?

  to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first...

• 1:07Elizabeth Day?

  Hello, it's Elizabeth here, and to continue my seasonal offering, here's another of my favourite How to Fail episodes from the archive. This time, it's the wonderful Jamie Dornan, which was recorded in November 2020. I adore this episode for a number of reasons. One is that Jamie Dornan turned up to my house, and that's in and of itself is a cause to celebrate. But also, it was one of the first interviews that I recorded in between lockdowns, where we could finally do it face-to-face, as long as we kept a social distance. So that was very special. And then the other special thing about it is that we discovered we had so much in common. Jamie Dornan and I actually went to school together at the same school in Belfast, and

• 1:52Elizabeth Day?

  we share some really interesting memories about that time. Thank you so much for listening, I hope you love it, and here he is, the man himself, Jamie Dornan.

• 2:02Elizabeth Day?

  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 Fifty 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

• 2:45Elizabeth Day?

  nature and for the way it toyed with our preconceptions. Later, he played photographer Paul Conroy in A Private War, the biopic of the late, great war correspondent Marie Colvin. "It was," Dornan 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 County Down, and was the third child of Lorna, a nurse, and Jim, one of Ireland's leading obstetricians, a man who has delivered over 6,000 babies. After school in Belfast, Dornan became a model, and a highly successful one at that.

• 3:28Elizabeth Day?

  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 sister's 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 Dornan is recognised 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

• 4:08Elizabeth Day?

  2014, "nobody sane wants to be famous." Jamie Dornan, welcome to How to Fail.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. I didn't know where to look there, but I got through the introduction.

• 4:20Elizabeth Day?

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

• 4:25Speaker 01

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

• 4:37Elizabeth Day?

  How sane do you feel today, given that quote about you'd have to be insane to want to be famous?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  I feel like often I don't feel very famous. I only ever feel famous when I'm somewhere where people know I'm going to be and there's a response to that, to that understanding of the location, whether that's a premiere, whatever it is for a movie I've done. And then you see people have come to support you and the 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'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.

• 5:24Elizabeth Day?

  Has it ever got scary, your level of fame?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  No. I mean, I remember saying, I did this interview for like GQ or 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 would be received, which we knew would be great for the people who love the book and the total opposite of that for people who don't understand the book or weren't up for the movies. And that's, it was very true to that, the response. But I remember saying I was scared of someone killing me on the red carpet.

• 6:00Elizabeth Day?

  That was probably unexpected for the journalist.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  It was, he was quite taken aback by it. But at that time, I genuinely believed it. I thought, someone's probably just gonna kill me here. It was this dark place that put your mind, but I must have believed it to say it.

• 6:17Elizabeth Day?

  Well, when you were thinking that, was that after you'd played Paul Spector in The Fall?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Ah, yes. So my mind's probably more open to darkness than it had been previously. I'm more accepting and more knowing what people are capable of, maybe, as a result of playing someone like that.

• 6:33Elizabeth Day?

  That performance was so phenomenal, Jamie. I loved The Fall so, so much. And you mentioned there 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.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's funny, you said it there, like, in terms of getting inside the mind of a serial killer. The first 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 that he sort of had recommended to read, and I read them. They're not hugely digestible books, I've gotta 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 wanna go to sleep in 10 minutes. I don't wanna go to sleep with this in my mind. But hugely beneficial to trying to build the character. And take not all aspects from these particular subjects that they were about and other guys that I've been told to sort of look into beyond those books.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Take bits from them, really, but build on what Alan had 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, this strong, you know, 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 Spectre wasn't capable of love. But I always tried to insert love into those scenes with the kids.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  And I think that's what made it all the darker, you know, was seeing that juxtaposition between the loving family man and the serial killer. I think that's what made it hard to watch for people.

• 8:38Elizabeth Day?

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

• 8:41Speaker 01

  From, you know, from birth to right this day, I've only been surrounded by women at home.

• 8:47Elizabeth Day?

  What's it like being the father to 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.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Sure. Listen, I wouldn't have a clue how to parent a boy. I just wouldn't. It's not what I know. All I know is three little magical beings that we share our home with, that fuel 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, well, it 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.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  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 in a sort of classic sense. A sort of terrible phrase, and the elder 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 they're one gender or the next. We're miles off it 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 they see and hear.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And when they're at school and at play dates or whatever it is, or watching TV, that influence is beyond our control a lot 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.

• 10:33Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, that's such a lovely thing to say.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  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 wee girls.

• 10:44Elizabeth Day?

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

• 10:55Speaker 01

  I think probably as I've got older, been 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. It builds us, it makes us, it colors us, and it's essential. And I, I think I wear my failures like a badge of honour a little bit because there's so fucking many of them. You know, particularly as an actor, you know, there just is, you know, there's very few people who, fresh out of the blocks, just get a great gig.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  I mean, funnily enough, my first ever job was a brilliant gig. And then you realise that that's actually not really like that. And then you fail a lot in between. But it stands you in 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 like maybe don't, get to continue on that path because of lack of work. There's horrible statistics about actors, is at any given moment, there's only like four or five percent employed. There are none employed at the moment during lockdown. I struggle sort of how to judge failure. Some people, especially in my game, where there's people who maybe consider their career failure,

• 12:21Speaker 01

  because they're always striving to have the same career as someone else, or better career than someone else. Or when they left drama school or whatever it is, they thought they'd have a certain career and they don't. But they have a career and they put food on the table and they provide and they have a mortgage and all the things that people strive for. But in their head, it's a failure because they expected something else of themselves. But from the outside looking in, people are like, you're a huge success. You know, you're never wanting of work, you can provide, but everyone's version of success is personal to them. I think so. Everyone's failure is personal to them.

• 12:52Elizabeth Day?

  You're so right, and our expectations and how we express them to ourselves and our internal narrative.

• 12:59Elizabeth Day?

  That's the key to being happier. I think managing expectation so that you're not feeling disappointed when you don't reach it.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:07Elizabeth Day?

  The key. But do you regret any of your fashion failures, Jamie?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Listen.

• 13:11Elizabeth Day?

  I only ask.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Wise up.

• 13:13Elizabeth Day?

  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 seatbelt belts and kind of baggy jeans and Vans trainers.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Listen, I don't like you making, putting an S and making belts plural. Because I had one seatbelt belt. It's very infamous. I have a stylist I work with when I'm doing stuff. Jean Yang, who's a magician, amazing woman, and she is based out in LA and she stands me when I have press and stuff to do these days. And she brings up that green belt so often. It's hard to defend it indefensible. It wasn't glaringly bad at that time, I don't think, that belt. Am I allowed to talk about another podcast on this podcast?

• 14:00Elizabeth Day?

  I don't know, only if you criticise it and I'm kidding. Of course you're allowed.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  And my wife obviously listens to your podcast, but she also listens to the Hilo, which I've listened to a bit myself. And I know those girls have, many others come in sometimes chuckling and say, yeah, they brought you up and they were sort of digging through paparazzi, which you're about to do right in front of me now, which is dreadful.

• 14:20Elizabeth Day?

  Seatbelt belt, I actually had a seatbelt belt, so you're okay. You're in good company.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  I remember being delighted with myself when I bought that in Camden one day. Because also you wore baggy trousers then, like baggy, big, dreadful looking jeans. Levi's twisted, I remember buying those thinking they were class and they really, really weren't. I remember being with Keira one day and we were walking through Camden and they were genuinely falling off my arse, which is kind of how I wore them anyway. But it was to a point where, I mean, it was like I needed help. And there, you know, shining in the sunlight was this green, awful shade of green seatbelt belt. And I thought. Bingo, here we go, that'll do the job. Not only will it serve a purpose, I'll look great. Turns out, I didn't.

• 15:05Elizabeth Day?

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

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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 out on their stall. They're probably just saying, no, listen, no one's gonna want that.

• 15:28Elizabeth Day?

  You said in past interviews that Kira 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 close.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and Kira was good at that and, you know, still is very close with Bunny, who's her, you know, best friend from school and, you know, she had a nightmare time of it when we were.

• 15:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I mean, we were kids when we met, you know, she was literally eighteen, I was twenty-one when we met and it's seventeen years ago now. She's just got an awful time of it, you know, paparazzi were horrendous and, you know, it really was that every single day, leaving her apartment or my apartment and hiding in bushes and all that sort of stuff. It was kind of gross. It wasn't kind of gross, it 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 mates from school. I just had then and I still have the same group now.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Mostly boys and a few girls from school that I'm, just are sort of everything to me, really, so I'm very lucky and fortunate in that way.

• 16:38Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:48Elizabeth Day?

  Although 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 in Methody in Belfast.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:57Elizabeth Day?

  So tell me what happened about at school.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  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 wanna be like friends with everyone. And it wasn't even to be popular, it was just to actually have friendship. And probably particularly boys, because I have two sisters and I was always sort of longing for brothers, basically. Not that, listen, I love my sisters, they're brilliant, but you do, there's a part of you that always thinks if you've only got one sex siblings of like, what would it be like to

• 17:43Speaker 01

  have the other? I really wasn't at school in my head to get an education. That was just not, it's 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 work. I really didn't. I don't say that with 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 like revision for stuff and your mates would always be like, yeah, I've done nothing. Yeah, absolutely. Done, just done nothing. I'm not ready for this exam at all. And I'd be going, no, I've done nothing.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  And they'll, yeah, no, me too. I'm not, no, no, I'm, I'm serious. I've literally, literally done nothing. I haven't opened a book. You know, if I've had study time, my dad's comes in to check to an hour later to make sure, you know, I was literally like sort of making, you know, study graphs and coloring stuff in and, you know, you know, mucking about my Game Boy or something, you know, just anything but revision. And the proof was in the pudding a wee bit, 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, did a bit better than me. And then everyone else who worked very hard did a lot better than me. I also had an issue with school about how exams were. Like, I always felt like it was kind of just a memory test

• 19:09Speaker 01

  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 mocks and stuff. By the way, which is an easy way, I like, I could have just learnt those answers and done the work and memorized stuff. Can you see the relief of people when they open their exam paper and they're like, oh, yeah, it came up. I would never even have that relief because I wouldn't even have bothered to learn and revise and remember all this stuff. And like, I didn't do terribly at school. Like, I did enough to pass my GCSEs. I did enough to come back from my A levels. Just with a bit of negotiating here and there.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  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 I had were harnessed a wee bit differently. I've a lot of good things to say about Matthew because as I say, I've still got all my best mates in the world from that school. And from a couple of other schools in Belfast, but friends from when I was a kid. But that whole structure of it with the sort of doming, the big 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.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  So that you will respect these people who are in charge of you and you respect your elders and stuff. It actually makes me do the opposite. You'd 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 what I mean? Like, I just, I've always really struggled with that, you know, and even when we, early days when we were going to see some schools for our eldest. We were to see this school and the headmaster was saying, oh, we're very, very relaxed here, you know, the kids, it's all first name terms. I was saying all the right things I want to hear. And I said something along those lines of like, I've always found it very strange with that sort of us and them thing. Teachers put at my school very much so that like, you know.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  I don't know how to say it really, because I am, I did have a good time at school, but I.

• 21:23Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say I was a rebel. I was sort of maybe trying to get to that. Like, I wasn't badly behaved at 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, the vice headmaster, whatever it is, headmistress, was walking down the corridor, like they were so on you about your shirt being like an inch untucked, or you know, something, your collar being up a little bit because you've sort of thrown it on after PE 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 untucked or whatever. So I wasn't a bad person, but I I struggled with that sort of conforming to the rules that that particular school set for me.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  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 and you went to was very much like you're either going to be a doctor or lawyer, or you're going to work in business. And there was really genuinely nothing else talked about. That was just the way it was and maybe slightly about the time it was too. But if you sort of uttered the idea of doing anything outside of those three vocations, you're kind of laughed 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 that.

• 22:46Elizabeth Day?

  I want to be the golden torso.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  I want to be that. Yeah, like, that's a, that's a massive aim for, for a kid from Belfast. I want to be the golden torso. It's not as if I get it, but I never felt stupid, but I felt that I had something to give that maybe could have been harnessed better or seen maybe by teachers and stuff, you know.

• 23:03Elizabeth Day?

  So interesting talking to you about it, because I had forgotten how terrifying method he was from that perspective.

• 23:12Elizabeth Day?

  My memory of it was very much, I need to do well at exams to get approval.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:19Elizabeth Day?

  And that was a kind of habit that shaped the rest of my life in quite a negative way. Because I thought if I just work hard, I'll get approval and that will make me feel better about myself.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 23:30Elizabeth Day?

  And obviously that never really happened. My memory was much more because I've always spoken with this English accent.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:36Elizabeth Day?

  That I didn't feel included or welcomed at all in my peer group.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:42Elizabeth Day?

  So actually, methody 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.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  If we could switch your experience with my experience, or we could combine the two, if you use them.

• 23:57Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  It'd be like, I mean, they'd be delighted with us. It would be like the perfect product that they've created. The exam side of it, my mother died just after my GCSEs. And then four of my best mates were killed in a car accident all 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. I'd done okay in my GCSEs, but my mum 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 to this deal that I would stay at school, do my A levels in methody, but I'd bored for two years. We had a boarding department.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  It's actually quite good if you've gone through 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. You know, when they go behind that wee door, what happens down there? Like, it's just a whole other world that you just aren't privy to. So you get to do that once you're a bit more assured of yourself and you're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. And you're probably at the right end of the totem pole in terms of what happens in boarding and the billing that goes on in every boarding school probably. And I played rugby and stuff and that was like help in boarding to go in and be in the rugby team. You knew you weren't going to get messed about, to be honest. So I didn't do well, mate. I was about to say I did okay. I didn't do well. I got C D E, I think. But I got enough to get into a university that I didn't wanna go to.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  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 chose the right A levels to stay in the same path to get to this 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 wanna work in an office. It'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 I didn't wanna do that. I'm not saying that means I wanted to be an actor or anything else. Frivolous as that, but I knew that I didn't wanna 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 with my A levels. And then I went to a uni that I kind of only went to because I got in

• 26:11Speaker 01

  to do a marketing degree, 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 this sort of comes back to in terms of why I think it ended up being good for me, sort of failing at school is had I worked, had I really taken those exams, seriously, those mock exams, those your G C C's, your A levels, and 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 my A levels, nothing, I mean, literally nothing. Went to uni, I went to nine hours of uni, five of them in freshers week. So then I spent eight months and I went to four hours of university in eight months.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  I played rugby four days a week and drank a lot. I had a good time, I've gotta say, but I knew I wasn't on the right path. Had I done better in my A levels and then gone to uni and then of course I really wanted to do and done very well and come out with a good degree, I'd be on 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 favorite in a really big way.

• 27:20Elizabeth Day?

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

• 27:43Speaker 01

  I had counselling, very open to admit that. I didn't actually until the accident, I don't think, which was thirteen months after my mum had died. Which had a huge impact on, well, the entire country, really. It was a very big horrific event. But particularly, you know, my friendship group, obviously. And that's not true. I had had a bit of counselling after mum died before that, and then that happened 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.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  And weirdly, in a way, maybe not being able to totally focus on that in a way that other kids may have been. 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 affects you every day. I mean, actually, I've had a very tearful week, honestly, about my mum particularly. I'm writing a script at the moment. And we've just finished the first draft and now going through it and second drafting it and writing it with a very friend of mine. And we are two main sort of protagonists in the movie are kids who've lost their parents and when they're teenagers.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  And so much of it, I haven't even been accepting of the fact that that happened to me. It's very weird. And then I'll finish a 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 defence 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, yeah, okay. And then I'll like cry for an hour. It's been the maddest experience, but also quite cathartic and good, you know, ultimately, I think.

• 29:42Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  I mean, she was incredible. I mean, very beautiful, like truly beautiful looking, 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 her. My whole family, like my sister's sound very different to me and my mom did too. My dad has sort of inherited this slightly posh accent thing and my mom really, considering she grew up in Portadown, I mean, she really got far away from Portadown accent. But it was all part of the way she carried herself and the sort of glamour that she had. And it's a very odd thing and not a very nice thing to have to admit that there's

• 30:45Speaker 01

  many aspects of my mom that I 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, you know, mum died in ninety eight. It's before you filmed absolutely everything on your phone and, you know, there's not a huge amount of sort of documentary footage, let's say, of my mum. So, and I love it, like when something does come into my mind, I'll get this 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

• 31:28Speaker 01

  that again. My dad's very proud and loves, you know, the line of work I've fallen into and everything. But my mum would have really got a serious kick out of it.

• 31:42Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD and what I appreciate. About their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable. So you can live more of the life you want to live.

• 32:27Elizabeth Day?

  If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail.

• 32:43Elizabeth Day?

  1998 then was a time of extraordinary transition and grief for you personally. And politically, a lot happened in Northern Ireland.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:54Elizabeth Day?

  They signed 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 aware you were of what is diminishingly referred to as the troubles.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Funny, isn't it, how meek that makes it sound, the troubles. I've never shied away from how 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 growing up in Belfast and you're going to school in the middle of Belfast. And there's no one who grew up or lived in that country during those times who wasn't affected by the troubles, no matter what your situation was. Even things like, "Hi, normal." Trying to plan to go into town, obviously before mobile phones and stuff. On a Saturday, we always met outside McDonald's in the centre of town, just to wander around on a Saturday afternoon.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  And the amount of times you'd phone the house phone of your friend because you'd seen on news there's a bomb scare. I mean, that was kind of in my head every weekend. It's like, I guess, did you see the news? Yeah, there's a, there's a bomb scare there, so not going into town today. The idea of that now, honestly, how commonplace that sentence was. And, you know, my dad worked at the Royal his whole life, which is, you know, on the Falls Road in West Belfast. And delivered, as you said, at the start of this, over six thousand babies in Northern Ireland. That's not six thousand Catholic babies, six thousand Protestant babies, that is a real mix of everything. So I feel like I was brought up in a very liberal household where religion was very rarely mentioned.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  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 mum 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 like I was on one side or the other. I didn't understand it. And actually, a very good thing about Methody was it was very mixed. When most people, people here or in England or anywhere else, they hear mixed, I think you mean boy, girl, but it was very mixed Catholic Protestant at Methody. And many other denominations, which was a great thing. If I think of my best mates from school, we're, I mean, literally fifty fifty, probably slightly edging more Catholic.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  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 countries. So only three percent of schools are mixed, segregated. And there's still areas that Catholics will never live in and areas of Protestants will never live in, particularly in, only really in the working class areas. So as much as a 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 it's a very complicated place.

• 35:47Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 35:59Elizabeth Day?

  Because in the north of Ireland, it carried such tribal profundity. Like you would never speak openly about it for fear of something happening. I totally relate to that. And you're right that Methody was mixed. But I remember at Methody, 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 for being 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 Euroco Hotel, and there were just these hulking, metal, warped, unrecognisable messes that had been cars.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 36:40Elizabeth Day?

  And that was just normal.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure, I know, my god, I know. It is, like, it is one of those things, like, when you, not again with people, particularly in the 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 now of what was our normal news.

• 36:59Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  It blows your mind, I mean, it really does, you cannot believe what you're seeing, the rioting, and police didn't drive normal cars, they drove those things they called meat wagons, those big armourered Land Rovers, and just people petrol bombing each other over sort of barricades, and it was, you didn't blink, you didn't blink watching that in the nineties and eighties and nineties from the time that I remember, it was just so normal. And now you realise how crazy it was.

• 37:27Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  You know.

• 37:29Elizabeth Day?

  And how much impact it has. I'm really bad at timekeeping, but I'm just so fascinated by everything that you're saying, that I'm so sorry, we've only just done one failure.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:38Elizabeth Day?

  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 after, 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 organised this podcast, who I know a bit, and I'm so grateful to her, she claims that it's all because of her, and she got you into model behaviour at Channel Four reality TV show.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Right, yes, I, yeah, let's, let's give her the due credit there. She did, I'd acted at school, I'd done a bit of youth theatre back home too, I'd done a bit of am drum 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, for rugby. So I did drama at GCSE and I'd done all the productions up until that point, then it came to sixth year, I basically had Choice and I chose rugby. I don't regret that for a second, that time of my life playing rugby. But it meant that I was sort of hadn't really featured in my sort of late teens in any sort of dramatic sense.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  But I'd always loved it and knew I could do it a bit. I knew I 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. I says, why? I said, 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 I'd secured a job in a pub before I went there. I knew I had this job. This bar called Tattersall's Tavern in Nychbridge, which I believe is still there. And I worked there for six months. In that summer that I dropped out of uni, my dad just wanted me to do anything, like anything that was constructive. A low point one day came back and I drank a lot that summer and didn't achieve a lot, I have to say.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  And one day I de-strung, I'd taken all the strings out of a tennis racket that I'd broken a string on. Hadn't re-strung it, I'd just taken all the strings out. And dad was like, what did you do today? And I was just standing. Tennis racket with a hole in it, saying I took all the strings out of this, I was thinking of getting it. And then he sort of took me away for a chat. He called me a waster. Actually, I remember very clearly, he said I was a waster. And I didn't disagree with him. I was a waster that summer. I was really achieving nothing. Very evident to the rest of my family that I was wasting everything away. Not everything away, it's not like I had anything to waste, but like I was just not achieving anything.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  And Jess, my sister, was just scrabbling around, was Lisa, my other sister, just trying to help me, like find some motivation. And Jess saw this ad for like some sort of open casting for some, this is very early days of even. I mean, I've sort of never even thought of that as a reality TV show, but I guess it was, but I just did so badly in it. Guess that's another failure, that I didn't get to a point where it felt like a reality TV show. So I went to this audition to wear this thing, model behaviour. Last thing in the world I want to do is model. I mean, no kid grows up, maybe they do now, certainly I didn't. I wasn't a kid growing up in Belfast going, I'd love to get my photograph taken for money.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  But anyway, it was something to do and I convinced my mate Andrew Hazard to come with me. So I'm gonna give Hazard a bit of credit here because Jess had told me to go. It was at the Welly Park Hotel, which is beside Metheny on the Malone Road. And on the way there, I called him and it was like, we had to be there at nine AM, which in those days was so early. Now that I've got three kids, that is a massive lie in. But then it was so early and I called him at like eight forty five. I said, I'll pick you up in ten minutes. No, I'm not coming. Mate, please, like, my sister's gonna kill me if I don't go to this thing. I don't wanna go, mate. I don't wanna go. I'm still sleeping. I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna turn around and just go home. And like, fuck this. Like, it's pointless.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Who wants to be a model anyway? And then there's something in me. It's like I heard my sister's, you know, and my dad calling me a waster. It's like, it was something to fill the day, even if I just said to that, oh, I went to that thing and I filled the day, dad, doing that. I remember, I was like, I'm gonna turn back. And then I thought, I'm gonna give Hazard one more go. I called him back, said, mate, you actually really need to do this for me. My family are gonna kill me if I don't turn up to this thing. Said, all right, okay, pick me up in five minutes. So I did, I picked him up. And had he said no again, I really genuinely turned around. Anyway, long story short, went, did all right. I got through the Belfast part of it, which, greatest of respect isn't a huge achievement. And got through to, by the way, Hazard didn't get, didn't make it

• 42:10Speaker 01

  through the next day. And he came back the next day. And then the whole thing was, they whittled you down. And they picked like six people from Ireland. There wasn't one in Dublin. So this was the all Ireland round or whatever. So there's a few dubs up and stuff. And it ended up being a few dubs and a few people from the north that all went to London, right? And that was the whole thing. You went to London. And there was like people from Manchester and Birmingham and Glasgow and like this. And there was probably forty of us. And they whittled that down to twenty and then to ten. And those ten people then lived in an apartment together and went out on like castings together. So I got nowhere near. I got half a day in London or something and was booted out. But I was very tenacious, I guess. And I don't really remember having this in me. But I, I remember taking the email of one of the judges, Kim Von Dickman, who was one of the judges who's also an agent

• 42:53Speaker 01

  at Select. And I said, listen, do you think I could do this? And she was kind of like, 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'd been part of the show and they had to wait for there to be a winner before you got a contract with Select.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  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 it. If Hazard hadn't answered the phone, I wouldn't be sat here, basically.

• 43:43Elizabeth Day?

  And if you hadn't been good looking enough, did you think you were good looking?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  No way, no, no, no. I thought I looked like, I've said this before, I still think this, that I look like a thumb. Um, if I don't have a beard, I look like a, like a wee thumb, I think. So, no. I'd never been led to believe that I was good looking at that stage.

• 44:05Elizabeth Day?

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

• 44:16Speaker 01

  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 like having the right look for the time or whatever it is. But also for me, I think, and it harks back to what I was saying about school and like people at the top of every industry, from every category you can think of, they're 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, you know, away from what school was trying to tell us of like 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 how, you know, I'm like, he's just a fucking person.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  And you just talk and I I feel like my modeling career, I did inordinately well in it and I didn't expect to. But I think a lot of that was down to, I worked with a lot of the same people, a lot repetitively. Big photographers, the same fashion house, I 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've just got on well with the people and they know you, so they know what you're getting, rather than like, oh, he's the best I can person for the job. That's not what it was about.

• 45:21Elizabeth Day?

  Sorry, I keep getting distracted by tangents, but there's so much I want to ask you. Did you or do you ever feel objectified?

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Oh, aye, yeah, yeah, definitely when I, not now, probably so much, but certainly when I was modeling, yeah, yeah. Because that's exactly what's happening.

• 45:36Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  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 and not like, you're this thing we've hired to look pretty lying on the fucking sofa. Do 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 it is a lot of time in that world. I always just tried to sort of make it fun because I didn't like it. I I today, I hate getting my photograph taken, I'm very uncomfortable with it. And I wasn't a good model. I I did well from it, but I wasn't good at it, I don't think.

• 46:15Elizabeth Day?

  And the whole Fifty Shades of Grey thing and the idea that you are countless women's and men's heartthrob. Like that if we still had posters, there would be posters of you blue tacked up on sort of teenage girls' bedrooms walls and all that sort of stuff. How does that sit with you? Because that's also objectification.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Any actor, whatever's putting themselves in that position, I guess, like that happened, you know. My sisters grew up pictures of Johnny Depp on their wall and that's just.

• 46:46Elizabeth Day?

  Brad Pitt for me.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Brad Pitt, yeah. I mean, I had, I had some Ulster rugby players on my wall.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  And then I had like a, a black and white, black and white picture of Liv Tyler that I used to kiss before I went to sleep every night.

• 46:58Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, my God, that's so sweet.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  And I was once with someone, uh, listen, I was once with someone who knew that story and she was a friend of hers. And she goes, Jamie, get on the phone here. And I was like, and she put me on the phone to fucking Liv Tyler. And she's like, oh, my God, I heard your story and you used to kiss me. I was like, oh, fuck this. No idea what to say there. Yeah, I mean, objectification is sadly a bit of a part that comes with the territory, I think.

• 47:23Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, now tell me about Once Upon a Time, the TV show.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Have you ever seen Once Upon a Time?

• 47:28Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, I should have been a really good interviewer and watched it, but I haven't ever seen it, I'm sorry.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  So listen, I guess I was at 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 ever audition was for Sophia Coppola's Marion Tanet, and I got it. And it was decent part, like not a huge part, but like quite integral to the whole thing. And I remember thinking, fuck, this is mad. Like just like straight off the bat, I've got this great job. Sophia had 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 was like, this is class. Cut to, you know, barely working for the next of eight years. But in that time I was modeling, so I had this kind of cushy situation of being able to afford to not be devastated if I didn't audition sing on my way.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Which were so, so many. And I hadn't worked in a while, I was feeling a bit low, but I was thinking I maybe just didn't really want to do it anymore. You know, I had this very good reputation, you know, I was like with the best agent in London, I was with C A A in L A. Like 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 these people who do book one of those pilots and it does run for five years and it's a horror show of a production.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  And they're locked in and actually they're better than that or whatever it is. And you get George Clooney did nine 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 the room together. A load of guys who look almost identical to you, all trying to achieve the same thing. And I was out there for pilot season, you're always depressed during pilot season anyway. And I was out there and to stave off the depression, I brought my girlfriend at the time with me, who's now my wife. I was like, listen, will you come out and be there with me? Because I just will need you to get through this. I also proposed to her out then in L A in that time, which made everything better.

• 49:38Elizabeth Day?

  Where did you propose?

• 49:40Speaker 01

  At our friend's house in L A where we met.

• 49:43Elizabeth Day?

  Did you get done in one knee?

• 49:44Speaker 01

  I did. I did the whole shebang, you know. But I was out in L A and I hadn't really been doing very well with the auditions. I hate auditioning. I'm a terrible auditioner. And I suddenly got this call that like I had to audition for this thing once upon a time that there was a lot of hype about. There was a pilot that everyone wanted to book. It was A B C. Production. It was Eddie Kitces and Adam Horowitz, who were two of the main writers on Lost. So there was a lot of like hype about it. And I basically got it and was truly under the belief that it had changed my life and it did. And I feel like it did at the time where I really hadn't worked in a long time and I was on the show that everyone would be on. So I came back, shot the pilot in Vancouver. Came back and then you've got this sort of horrible two, three month wait to find out that the pilot got picked up. And you've signed on to be in it for five or six, seven years. Can't remember what it was.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  And I got a phone call that the pilot had been picked up. I was like, oh my God, brilliant. Here we go. Happy days. Getting paid a lot of money to be in this show that is on a big network show. My agent was like, the show's been picked up, but they're gonna kill your character off pretty early.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I went, right, okay. They tried to spin it that like it was like a story thing. They were always gonna kill one of the characters off because that sort of happens in shows. I now know that like it was probably just bollocks. You know, they test the shit out of those pilots. They'll test audiences and I think probably everyone was like, get rid of that dude. And I actually always felt very uncomfortable in the role. I felt like I wasn't this guy. I sort of didn't really ever really know what to do with it. Couldn't really hang my hat on anything with them. I don't know why. So I felt I wasn't very good in it. So then I had this strange thing of like having to go back and shoot eight more episodes, but knowing it was gonna be over for me. And really truly believing that my world had kind of ended. I remember going out, my flatmate Jonesy at the time. It was his wee brother's birthday. We're going for pints in Notting Hill somewhere.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  I remember I was like, I don't think I can go and like sitting with Millie and like crying and being like, I can't, I can't see people. I was so embarrassed by it all. Cause everyone was gonna be like, what's happening with your show? Has it got picked up? Are you going? Are you moving to Vancouver? And I was gonna have to be like, yeah, I'm going, but I'm, you know, won't be going for as long as I thought maybe. Anyway, cut to I get killed off. And then the fall comes my way and I just, if I would, I would have been on that 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'd said that.

• 52:06Elizabeth Day?

  So two things there. One 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.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Once you get over that, that's, that's huge. I think my sister told you, I nearly wrote that one of my failures was not being as eloquent as Daisy Edgar Jones. Um, I listened to her with you. And she's not like 22 or something.

• 52:44Elizabeth Day?

  Twenty one. I think she just turned 22, you're right. I know. She's amazing.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  And I just could never have 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 when 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, I've been at the other side of it, where that isn't the case. And it really challenges your idea of your own self-worth. If you've really committed to doing something and that thing isn't working out for you, you really question yourself, you know?

• 53:34Speaker 03

  Shelley Jensen was about to retire early after selling her veterinary practice for millions. But a moment of vulnerability became a way to take away her rights.

• 53:45Speaker 04

  Don't you see how destroyed I am as a person?

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Her husband fought to save her before Shelley lost her freedom forever.

• 53:53Speaker 05

  This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is Free Shelley Jensen. Available now on The Binge.

• 54:03Speaker 06

  Greetings, it's Mel Gedreuth here, host of Where There's a Will Is Awake, the podcast that laughs in the face of death. Yes, that's right. Celebrities plan every detail of their dream demise, from the funeral playlist to the buffet at the wake. And our recent live funeral shows in an actual church delivered plenty of deliciously dark surprises. So if you've ever wondered what Mark Watson's final meal would be, or how Phil Wang would like to be remembered, you're in luck. Watch and listen to Mark Watson's funeral now exclusively on Amazon Music. And don't miss Phil Wang's cracker of a funeral, coming on the 12th of November. See you on the other side.

• 54:43Elizabeth Day?

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

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I guess I lean more towards agnostic now. I don't know kind of why, but in the last few years, I've maybe been more towards that slightly softer version.

• 55:00Elizabeth Day?

  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've 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.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:19Elizabeth Day?

  Is that accurate, do you think?

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I just wouldn't staple any of that to religion.

• 55:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Probably for me personally. You know, it's like those little snippets of that you pick up along the way. And like someone just once said to me that saying of what's for you won't pass you by. And there's certain things you hear and that just really has stuck with me. And it makes all your feelings, of which there have been many and will continue to be many, way more palatable and digestible, you know. And listen, I've had that with jobs, you know, the jobs where I've turned down and they've become like the biggest hit of fucking year. And I'm like, shit, should I have done that? And then but something else comes along that you wouldn't have been able to do, you know. And I think you have to apply that to the vocation that I'm in. I sort of believe that you're on a bit of

• 56:07Speaker 01

  a path. These challenges are put in your way, or these great things that happen that are all sort of for you, based on that thing that like, if it's not for you, it won't land on your lap type thing. I feel like I don't consider it too much. I don't look into it 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.

• 56:38Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, I think that makes total sense that you can choose to 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.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you'd also just be inside your head too much. And I always try not to be really heady. And I'm always trying to get outside of my own head and actually having kids is the best thing for that. And it's the best thing for that through lockdown, particularly the three months of that. Having a focus that isn't going on based purely on what's good for you works for me. You know, I need that. If I spend too much time in my own head, I get freaked out.

• 57:20Elizabeth Day?

  I know, it's very exciting for me because this is the first interview that I've done post lockdown, which is face to face.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Right, I see.

• 57:27Elizabeth Day?

  I feel like I've lost all capacity for small talk and social interaction. So I hope this is going okay.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  No, and we're holding the Amazon delivery drivers around for like minutes. He's like, I've got to go. No, no, here, Tommy, come here. Where are you, where are you going now? And are your kids well? You know, just like desperate for, for chat. It's been a strange time.

• 57:49Elizabeth Day?

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

• 57:56Speaker 01

  How have I done today? I feel like I, yeah, 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, did you decide it? She knew I'd decided on the first two or whatever. What did you decide for the third failure? And I said, because I had plenty of options, obviously, I said, I failed you to sit still. And she went, uh huh. She said, did you say you could add on and quiet? And I was like, right.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  I'm going to defend myself a wee bit here. You get blood tests done all the time as an actor. You have to do a medical before every job. If you're a lead in something and if the production can't really continue without your health. Being in check, then you need to do these medicals. And sometimes they're really thorough and you're on a fucking treadmill. Hooked up to all these pads and a big mask on. Sometimes they're testing you for speci- 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 and you get a proper checkup. And sometimes it's much less than that. Sometimes it's a cough and a whistle and then you go. But in a very early medical I had, and then I've had it done a few times since, my bloods were tested for adrenaline and I had very high levels of adrenaline in my

• 59:10Speaker 01

  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 too. I'm a terrible singer, like, I don't mean I'm terrible singer, I'm okay singer, but like what I mean is 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 the time because of that. I think I make a lot of noise and I move a lot. And I'm one of those people who really genuinely struggles unless I've exercised. When I was younger, I was playing a lot of sport and playing a lot of rugby and stuff. I got that out of my system. So I probably was a bit calmer, but as you get older and you've kids and as much as you're running about after them, I'm not running right after a ball or running with a ball. So it's a strange thing. Now, if I don't run or work out or play football

• 59:55Speaker 01

  or whatever it is, I'm way worse when it comes to a certain time, particularly around five. My wife calls it shoddy bangy time.

• 1:00:03Elizabeth Day?

  I love your wife.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Which is like something you'd apply to your toddlers. Everyone I've lived with is acutely aware of this situation and it's usually around that time of the day, something about my adrenaline levels, blood sugar levels, whatever, I go a bit hyper around that time.

• 1:00:20Elizabeth Day?

  That's fascinating. And then what happens? Do you, do you have, after the spike?

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  A bit of a crash?

• 1:00:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  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 about bloods and stuff. And I'm a on form person most of the time, you know, I don't think anyone would think of me as someone who, again, me 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, probably too much for my wife's liking. She is an only child and is a very calm person and likes calm a lot of time and probably I'm not ideal. The guy, as I've been writing this script that we've kind of finished, I've been, you know, 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 Connor, his name's Connor McNeil. And Connor's like,

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  we came up after a couple of days in my office together and to Millie, he was like, how do you live with him? And she was like, I know. I was like, you know what? Fuck you guys. I'm standing here. And like, I guess I'm not that aware of how annoying it can be, but I think it is.

• 1:01:26Elizabeth Day?

  So is going to the theatre your idea? Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Nightmare, nightmare. Especially those old theatres where there, there's no legroom and stuff. Tell you what the one of the hardest things was during the fall, because I'd made a choice to play him very still.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Which was a nightmare for me. And then by the third series, I was pretty much spending the whole series in a hospital bed. A massive challenge again for me. You have the props guys coming and saying, Jamie, every time you keep moving, every time you move, we have to replace this. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I'm really trying. I'm really trying not to do it. I just can't. I just can't. Terrible.

• 1:02:02Elizabeth Day?

  And that's something you've always had.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  I believe so, yeah.

• 1:02:06Elizabeth Day?

  Squirmy, squirmy Jamie.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Active child, yeah, an active man. Yeah. Squirmy.

• 1:02:13Elizabeth Day?

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

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it has become that, you know, but now when I see it, I'm like, oh my God, what is wrong with you? You know, I'll see like a, like an interview of myself on like a red carpet or something. I'm like rocking back and forth like I'm in some like asylum. It's mad. You know, thank God this isn't on camera. I still hate hearing my voice. I hate seeing myself being myself. I'm okay. 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 that's well written. Great words make great actors, as O'Toole said. I'm a huge believer in that and that's okay. But watching me be myself, I cannot stand it.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  I'm just like, what are you doing? I sit still. Why are you doing that with your eyes? Oh my God, do you know your knee's doing that? I just can't believe how kinetic I am.

• 1:03:12Elizabeth Day?

  It's so interesting. Well, I think that shows that you are the polar opposite of a narcissist, which is a great thing. But I've watched your many chat shows. I've never noticed the squirming. You're an, you're an impeccable chat show guest. You are so, you have that down. Like you're so good at it, having just the right anecdote and being sort of friendly and funny and engaging. It's a skill being a good chat show guest, I imagine.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Thanks. Well, I, I, I look, a lot of that's on the host, I reckon. I think Graham Norton's the best in the world at that.

• 1:03:40Elizabeth Day?

  I totally agree and I love every single one of your appearances on Graham Norton.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:03:45Elizabeth Day?

  The walking one particularly.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Thank you. Jesus, that comes up a lot with people who don't know me. It's very funny. I think it was the first time ever, Graham Norton and I, it's amazing how many times I, I talk about it. Also, I mean, I'm still very aware of my walk and still very uncomfortable with the way I walk. In fact, today, I parked my car over there down the street and I got out of the car and went, fuck, I'm like 50 yards from your house and what if you're looking out and the first impression you have of me is walking?

• 1:04:16Elizabeth Day?

  So sweet.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  I was like, she's gonna be like, oh, Jesus Christ, look at this guy.

• 1:04:23Elizabeth Day?

  Don't think I want him on the podcast.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Like tiptoeing my bouncy way up the fucking road. Um, so I was delighted when you hadn't seen me until I was standing in the door and I thought, if I can get to that chair quick enough and then wriggle around in it for an hour and a half.

• 1:04:36Elizabeth Day?

  I have not noticed anything amiss with your walk. For anyone who hasn't seen that Graham Norton clip, first of all, I highly recommend it. And secondly, Jamie was talking about how you naturally walk on your toes.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. You, you wanna see our one and a half, you're not quite one and a half, but you'll be one and a half by the time this comes out. She is on her toes the entire time and like, oh, well, okay, 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 was, had like dance lessons for something that you're actually meant to sort of, he said, you know, it's like walking, you know, you go heel to toe. And I was like, what?

• 1:05:11Elizabeth Day?

  Three of mine.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  It's news to me. So, yeah. Yeah. Mr. And Graham Norton is funny. On New Year's Eve, we were with our best friends and we were, you know, drunk and, you know, you say all these lovely things at the stroke of midnight and I turn around to Millie and I was like, I think, I, I have five movies coming out in, in 2020. I said to Millie, I really think this is gonna be, just 2020 is gonna 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 and promote some of the movies, which I will hopefully get to at some time. And that whole remote thing that he was doing, I just, it was hard, wasn't it? It wasn't.

• 1:05:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, it doesn't have the same feeling.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt sorry for like, I think Paul Meskell had to do it, didn't he, early on, like at the, you know, obviously it'd be like his first time doing the show and he's like, you know, sat in his flat in Hackney. Felt quite sorry for him.

• 1:06:08Elizabeth Day?

  Are you friends with Paul Meskell, just because you're both Irish?

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  I am, I, listen, he's one of my best mates now.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  No, listen, I reached out to him. Reached out, that's such an American thing to say, as my agent says all 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 my very good mates is very good mates, so I said, ask Paul if it's okay for me to to get in touch. So I did. So now I'm in touch with him. But I, you know, sometimes you watch something, you're just compelled.

• 1:06:39Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  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 have 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. And from people that you just never expect that are seeing, usually it's the fall, you know, very, you know, heighty actors get in touch. And I'm like, oh, wow, like, I've never done that. So I'm starting to do that more, because I think it's nice to hear it from peers, like saying, by the way, what you did, and that was phenomenal. And I just want you to know that. It might mean nothing coming from me that I'm telling you that, but I'd like you to know that. I think it's right

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  that you know that.

• 1:07:25Elizabeth Day?

  Also, who better to guide him through instant fanatical heartthrob status than you?

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  I mean, it feels even bigger for him, I think, because of we were all in lockdown when the obsession began with that show. And it must have just been 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 gonna get a proper shock when the pubs open.

• 1:07:52Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  And well, they'll open by the time this is, he's probably been kidnapped or something by now, Paul, to be honest. By the time this comes out, there'll be people see him and just jump him and throw him in a van.

• 1:08:04Elizabeth Day?

  Jamie Dornan, inveterate squirmor.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:07Elizabeth Day?

  I never noticed your walk. I think you're just such a lovely, interesting, warm person, and I cannot thank you enough for coming on How To Fail.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Thank you. I can't wait to fail many more times, so I get to come on again.

• 1:08:20Elizabeth Day?

  Well, yeah, please, will you?

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Oh, I will. Don't worry. I'll be failing. I'll be making lots of failures. Don't worry.