How “one of the most iconic moments in cinema” convinced Jamie Dornan to become an actor
Jamie Dornan might be a great comic actor trapped in the body of a leading man.
The occasionally unfortunate reality of Hollywood is that actors have no say in which of their films are the most successful, as the performances they are most proud of aren’t necessarily what they’re most recognised for.
Dornan has been in a number of compelling period dramas, war epics, and psychological thrillers, but he tends to be best known for his role in the Fifty Shades of Grey series. Even though he hasn’t expressed much interest in those films, they were so popular that they will stick around with him for the rest of his career.
What’s most ironic about the success of the Fifty Shades of Grey series is that they paint Dornan as being a cold, brooding actor who takes himself too seriously, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone who has seen his role as the host of Saturday Night Live UK knows that he has a great sense of humour, which means that he will hopefully be taking on more comedic roles in the future.
Comedy isn’t just something that the actor has a passing interest in, but one of the reasons that he wanted to become a performer. Dornan revealed that one of his most memorable cinemagoing experiences as a child was seeing the performance by Steve Martin in The Jerk, which blew him away.
“I remember thinking his comedy was unparalleled,” he told Vanity Fair, “Take that scene in The Jerk when he’s backing out of the house, and he’s taking all the stuff that he thinks he deserves. That’s one of the most iconic moments in cinema for me. The physical comedy got me. I wanted to do that. I still want to do more comedy.”
Although Martin had already been a popular stand-up comedian by 1979, The Jerk was his first time leading a film, and it kicked off one of the most successful careers of any comedic actor in history. Carl Reiner’s hilarious, zany comedy offered a style of slapstick humour that simply wasn’t seen at the cinema during the era, as Martin was able to commit to the physical shenanigans in order to play a completely ridiculous character. He would go on to refine his comedic sensibilities over the next few decades, but The Jerk is perhaps his most unabashedly silly role to date.
Dornan has experimented with some of Martin’s brand of comedy, most notably in the underrated 2021 film Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar. While the film was underseen because it was released on VOD just as theatres were beginning to be reopened, and wasn’t well marketed by Lionsgate, it saw Dornan playing an eccentric, lovesick henchman. The film memorably includes a scene in which the actor carries his own tune while singing a goofy love song; it’s not all that different from Martin’s musical scenes in films like Little Shop of Horrors or Pennies From Heaven.
While Dornan has a busy few years ahead of him because he is set to play Aragorn in the prequel film The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, it’s not completely unlikely that he would never work with Martin, who still has an active leading role on the hit comedy series Only Murders in the Building, which frequently brings in notable guest stars.
