Irish heart-throb Jamie Dornan has opened up about the tragic death of his mother, and the impact it had on him as a teenager.
The Fifty Shades of Grey star was speaking to Jay Rayner on his podcast Out to Lunch With…
Dornan revealed he turned to alcohol to numb the pain of losing his mother, who died of pancreatic cancer in 1998.
The youngster was hit with further tragedy a year later when four of his friends were killed in a car crash.
The Co Down native said: “I had a very rough couple of years that I guess I’m still dealing with both of (those) things today, every day.
“But I guess they were very acute still then, and I drank a lot of everything but I had this summer where I’d go out a lot, drink, not really achieve anything.”
Dornan went on to reveal that his mental struggle led him to dropping out of university, but it wasn’t until his depression was pointed out to him, that he realised his situation.
He said: “I had a summer, I dropped out of university and I was doing a marketing degree and no interest in any aspect of marketing, and I thought ‘Well f**know this, I’m going to leave.’
“I remember having this idea that I wanted to change and I knew I wasn’t on the right path and I needed to do something else, and I got into an interview once and I was explaining what I got up to that summer, and the interviewer goes ‘So you’re depressed’ and I was like ‘Oh s**t yeah’.
“I’d never seen it that way but I must have been depressed.”
The actor also talked about his decision to take on his most famous role to date, Christian Grey in the steamy 50 Shades of Grey franchise.
He described it as a “crazy journey to go on” and admitted he “sort of knew” the film would be banned in several countries because of its sexual content.
He said: ’It’s very odd because you’re presented with this incredible opportunity that is going to have a great impact on your life and change many things, but you sort of know, it’s going to get banned.”
Written by Andrew Moore
