Jamie Dornan skyrocketed to fame with his lead role in the captivating crime drama series, The Fall alongside Gillian Anderson. The show which aired between 2013 and 2016 defined him in the landscape of aspiring Hollywood actors for his portrayal of the unnerving serial killer, Paul Spector. However, that was not the only sensation of that year.
Parallel to Jamie Dornan’s rather subdued launch in the industry, Henry Cavill propelled to untouched heights with his casting as Superman in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel — a role which would then become a point of contention, public outcries, and mass movements asking for his return over the following decade. But before all of that, it was simply one Irish actor failing to secure the role of Superman from his contemporary British actor and setting out to prove himself better.
Jamie Dornan Rallies Up the Hill After Losing Superman Role
In the most old-fashioned manner of wanting to prove oneself in the world, Jamie Dornan sets out to achieve nothing short of absolute success in Hollywood after he lost the role of DCEU’s Superman to Henry Cavill. There was a primal yearning to reach the top that the Irish actor felt when he recalled the days since his Superman snub. In fact, in his need for being better, the Belfast actor stepped into enemy territory when he met with Kevin Feige for a Marvel role, in the hopes of finding a sense of vindication.
“I’m more ambitious than I’ve ever let on before. It’s like a necessity to deliver and provide, very caveman-esque: I must succeed for these precious little people. Also, since my dad died, it’s lit this extra fire within me, this extra burner of wanting to succeed.”
Although the actor did find international fame within the next few years as the lead male protagonist of the Fifty Shades franchise, the success that came with the E.L. James adaptations was very dissimilar to the rising admiration and mass deification of Cavill’s Superman after the SnyderVerse trilogy. Although commercially successful, Jamie Dornan’s role in the Fifty Shades movies was bashed harshly by critics, and the actor found himself depressed and in a place where success was a hair’s breadth away and yet unreachable.
It was never revealed which MCU role he had auditioned for but since it was circa 2013, one can hazard a few guesses, the first of which begins with Malekith in Thor: The Dark World.
Jamie Dornan Finds Respect For His Contemporaries
Jamie Dornan, Charlie Cox, Eddie Redmayne, Andrew Garfield, and Robert Pattinson were famously all roommates when the young squadron was making their way into the cut-throat world of acting before fame and glamour eventually caught up to them all. Each finding unprecedented success as the leading man of multi-million dollar franchises, it had been a parallel growth, and yet Dornan finds some time to be appreciative of the journey that his contemporaries have had, especially Pattinson with his groundbreaking role as Batman in the Matt Reeves DCU film.
“I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I feel like him and his people have played it really cleverly. Everything he’s done since Twilight has been really smart and beautifully crafted, and those films aren’t financed on his name had he not been in these movies that made billions of dollars.”
Jamie Dornan himself has a diverse filmography to speak of. His 2021 sensation, Belfast, directed by the Academy Award-winning director Kenneth Branagh awarded him with a Golden Globe nomination. Moreover, Dornan’s role in The Fall won him the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor in Television.
Source: The New York Times
