'The Fall' changed my life - that's not an overstatement.
— Jamie Dornan
No matter what happens in my career, I've always got 'The Fall.'
To play any character, you have to have a total understanding of why they do what they do.
You want roles that challenge you and that scare you a little and where you can really discover something, even about yourself, that maybe you didn't understand.
I feel good that I have my life in order. I'm not addicted to anything that I'm aware of.
Mass appreciation doesn't always equate to something good.
I feel very settled. I'm not running in and out of clubs at 5 A.M. anymore.
I think people from Northern Ireland have some kind of unspoken general feeling of what it is to be around segregation. You have an awareness of it because you know how much grief it's caused.
Every role is physical to a certain extent, but as a viewer, I don't respond well to actors doing more than they need to tell a story.
I'm amazed if people are happy in their own skin.
I've never read anything set in Belfast that doesn't involve the Troubles or something senseless over a flag.
I'm a fairly worldly guy.
Although just being employed as an actor is a big thing, I'm not sure I'd be satisfied playing the same character for 30 years; it's not why I want to do this for a living.
I read a lot about serial killers.
People ask me what Gillian Anderson's like to work with, and I have no idea!
If you are a skinny, baby-faced teenager, the last thing you want to hear is that you're cute.
I love fatherhood.
I don't think if you looked up all the main points of feminism I would tick every one essentially myself.
I defy anyone to watch interviews with Ted Bundy and not be taken by him. He was very handsome and charming and extremely intelligent and, you know, that can exist.
Basically, I've always had a complex with the way I walk. I've not always been told I've got a bad walk, but someone's always commented on my walk.
I feel very tied to Ireland and the U.K. and that side of the world.
I don't really have choices in the material I get. So I have to make the choices in the way I play the characters.
I think I've done two shoots in my underwear ever. They both happened to be for Calvin Klein. But that tag - 'underwear model' - I just can't get rid of it. And it's such a bizarre, specific thing - underwear. It's like I never modelled clothes.
I'd always really wanted to act; but the modelling contracts came more easily.
Nobody sane wants just to be famous.
I want to keep an element of myself in every character I play. And maybe that's connected to finding something that you like in every character. Maybe they coincide.
I think my lesson is to back yourself once you've been given a job. Far too often, I've been given a job and then doubted why I'm there.
Christian Grey - he isn't a real person. He's a superhero. A myth. He's like Bigfoot! He's unbelievable. He's unattainable. There's no actor in the world who could live up to that.
I'm still not aware that I'm good looking.
My dad was a keen actor when he was young; my auntie is heavily involved in amateur dramatics back in Northern Ireland, and my great aunt was a woman called Greer Garson.
When I think of sex symbols, I think of posters my two sisters had on their bedroom walls.
I like playing characters who are fractured, broken. I find that more relatable, for some reason. I don't feel that I'm like that myself by nature, but there's just something that you can really grab hold of if people have a darkness in them, I think.
I could eat 10 packs of Hula Hoops a day and not think about it.
I didn't do particularly well with girls at school. I was very shy. I'm not saying that was the only reason I didn't do well with them, but I just didn't.
The man is meant to be the alpha in the relationship on the money and power front.
Throughout Ireland, there's a brilliant community of filmmakers and actors, and I guess there was always a lure to do some work in the place where I come from.
What kid doesn't want to pretend they're James Bond?
I feel pretty secure about who I am.
Every actor craves choice.
A doctor once told me I have abnormal levels of adrenaline in my system.
There's no easy time to lose a parent.
Now and again, an actor will blow my mind by doing something really unexpected, like Mickey Rourke or Christopher Walken - you have absolutely no idea what they're going to do, which is really thrilling to watch.
I think sometimes actors are drawn to good television because you have more time to sell it, you have more time to shape a character, and to tell a story, and that's really appealing.
Modelling doesn't hold you back in L.A. at all.
I grew up in a very liberal place.
People expect me to be stupid. I'm not saying I'm Stephen Fry, but it is amazing the perception people have.
When I was younger, I thought maybe one day I'd be involved in sport in terms of career.
My wife is a brilliant, hugely understanding person.
I don't like myself without a beard.
It's a strange environment, being hounded. The paparazzi are cretins.
