Jamie Dornan says his “Fifty Shades of Grey” stardom came with an uncomfortable price.
The Irish actor, who starred as kinky billionaire Christian Grey in the film franchise based on E.L. James’ erotic novel series of the same name, told The Independent that a super fan took things too far after showing up at his front door before the coronavirus pandemic.
“I had a situation… a stalker-type situation before Covid. That was fucking scary. Someone turned up at my house when my kids were there,” Dornan, 41, said in an interview published Saturday.
After being asked about the array of quacky conspiracies from “Fifty Shades” fans, including a theory that he’s secretly in a relationship with co-star Dakota Johnson and even procreated with the leading lady, he revealed that he’s “tried to put walls up” to protect himself from over-invested fans.
“I’m pretty good at just blocking any of the noise associated with whatever fandom is ― not letting it affect me, or more importantly my family,” Dornan said.
He added: “The more I can block that out, the better it is for me and the family.”
Dornan has been married to musician Amelia Warner since 2013, and the pair have three daughters, Dulcie, Elva and Alberta.
Considering the popularity of the “Fifty Shades” trilogy, the actor says he’s worked to avoid taking on high-profile projects to try to keep a “normal life.”
“There are obviously other jobs that bring insane scrutiny, like superhero stuff, or fucking James Bond ― any of that stuff. I’ve done pretty well to avoid that sort of shit so far,” Dornan said.
Some might say that Dornan unintentionally manifested his run-in with the stalker after he revealed that he once stalked a woman on the subway to prepare for his role as psychotic serial killer Paul Spector in 2006’s “The Fall.”
“Can we get arrested for this?” he said in a 2015 interview with the Los Angeles Times about the incident. “Hold on… this is a really bad reveal: I, like, followed a woman off the train one day to see what it felt like to pursue someone like that.”
The former model insisted he kept his distance while trailing the unidentified woman. He called the moment of method acting “kind of exciting” but in a “really sort of dirty way.”
“I’m sort of not proud of myself. But I do honestly think I learned something from it, because I’ve obviously never done any of that. It was intriguing and interesting to enter that process of ‘what are you following her for?’ and ‘what are you trying to find out?’” Dornan told the L.A. Times.