Eight songs Jamie Dornan couldn't live without

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

The Northern Irish actor Jamie Dornan could say that dropping out of university was the best decision he ever made. While such a move could spell disaster for some, Dornan saw a more prosperous future in London’s thriving acting and modelling industry. After several years of modelling success, he scored his first acting part in Sofia Coppola’s 2006 movie Marie Antoinette.

This early activity helped to raise Dornan’s profile, but his crucial breakthrough to global acclaim came nearly a decade later with a lead role in the film adaptation of E.L. James’ best-selling novel, Fifty Shades of Grey. Concurrently, he enjoyed a Bafta-nominated role as the psychopathic serial killer Paul Spector in the crime drama series The Fall. Following the success of 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey, Dornan reprised the role in two additional franchise instalments. 

Speaking to Lauren Laverne during his recent appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs feature, Dornan revealed that he was very close to missing out on his breakout role in The Fall. “I auditioned to play a police officer who dies in the second episode,” he said. “At the time, I was happy just to get in the room. I didn’t hear anything.”

“I was going to LA for a pilot season anyway, whilst I was out there, I was probably a week or ten days into this trip, and I got a call from my agent saying, ‘They want you to audition again for The Fall. It’s for a different part.’ I remember thinking, ‘Oh here we go’. They said, ‘No, it’s for the main guy.’ I remember thinking, ‘If I get this, this will change the course of my career.’ I was right. It did. It literally changed my career overnight,” he added.

Following his first outing as Christian Grey in 2015, Dornan received attention from all corners of the globe, and not all of it positive. To escape the “ridicule”, the actor fled to a rural hideaway with his wife. “They [the Taylor-Johnsons] let us have their place in the country, and we hid there for a while and just shut ourselves from the world for a bit and then came out the other side,” he said. 

Through the highs and lows of his career, Dornan has found his homeland of Northern Ireland to be a comforting focal point. His eight-song selections during the radio feature reflected this, including Van Morrison’s classic song ‘Caravan’ and a classical music choice from the Ulster Orchestra.

“I get homesick for Ireland and Belfast and the people, so often while I’m away, I’ll find myself Googling stuff,” Dornan told Laverne. “I’ll be on local newspapers at home, reading headlines and stuff. And I’d obviously typed in Ulster somewhere – I’d written the words Ulster and came across this recording by the Ulster Orchestra. This was just one of those pieces of music that I instantly went, ‘I’m going to be listening to this a lot in my life.’ And I do. I go to it all the time.'”

Dornan’s selections span from the atmospheric post-rock of Iceland band Sigur Rós to the sentimental vitality of The Waterboys’ signature hit ‘The Whole of the Moon’. See the full list of selections below.

Jamie Dornan’s favourite songs:

• ‘Caravan’ – Van Morrison
• Violin Concerto No. 1: II. Composed by Philip Glass and performed by Adele Anthony (violin) and Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Takuo Yuasa
• ‘Hoppípolla’ – Sigur Rós
• ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ – Simon & Garfunkel
• ‘Metarie’ – Brendan Benson
• ‘Forever’ – The Beach Boys
• ‘Something’ – The Beatles
• ‘The Whole of the Moon’ – The Waterboys

Related Topics