Return of Christian Grey
More of Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades Darker
For some among us, Valentine’s Day, 2017, could not come sooner. It will have been two years since the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie based on the best-selling novel by E.L. James, about Anastasia “Ana” Steele, the innocent college grad who gets indoctrinated into the arts of B&D (bondage and discipline) and S&M (sadomasochism) by her lover, Christian Grey, the fabulously wealthy tycoon. The movie, starring Dakota Johnson as Ana and Jamie Dornan as Grey, became almost as outsized a juggernaut as the book, and turned Johnson and Dornan into stars.
The focus has mostly been on Johnson, with her Hollywood pedigree (mom is Melanie Griffith; dad is Don Johnson; grandma is Tippi Hedren). But as much as Shades of Grey was Ana’s story, Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel penned by E.L. James and the movie adaptation scheduled to be unveiled on February 14, is more about Christian Grey—his family life, his own indoctrination by an older woman (Kim Basinger), his former submissives, his need to commit to Ana as a further rite of passage.
So what of Jamie Dornan? He was born in Northern Ireland, his dad a doctor, his mom dying when he was 16. He modeled (with and without clothes) for Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein, studied acting in Belfast and London, got a big break on the ABC series Once Upon a Time, playing Sheriff Graham, and the BBC series The Fall, as a serial killer opposite Gillian Anderson’s detective. Then came marriage (to actress Amelia Warner) and two kids, and the massively popular role of Christian Grey.
And now, the anticipation of Fifty Shades Darker. Will Dornan finally go full-frontal—as Johnson did in Shades of Grey? The stars have coyly hinted at it in interviews, but jokingly, giving little reason to believe them. Readers of James’s trilogy (the third opus, Fifty Shades Freed, also starring Johnson and Dornan, has already been shot and will premiere on Valentine’s Day, 2018) already know that the sex is definitely more “vanilla” in the sequels, as the story gets more thriller-like and new subplots, mostly about jealousies and vendettas, come into play.
So many possibilities: Seeing Grey as a submissive in his youth. Seeing the dynamic shift, and Grey becoming needier in his relationship with Ana. Seeing the stories behind the poses. Can the Grey phenomenon be sustained? Watch the latest trailer (below) and unlock your fantasies.
