Jamie Dornan Reveals Heartbreaking Reason 2021 Was the 'Worst Year' of His Life
Between Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar, The Tourist, and Belfast, actor Jamie Dornan had one of the best years of his career in 2021. However, the Fifty Shades of Grey star explained in a recent interview that the death of his father made it the "worst year of his life." Dornan's father Jim Dornan, a renowned obstetrician and gynecologist in Northern Ireland, died in March after COVID-19 complications. He was 73.
"It's a strange thing to end the year with all this positivity," Dornan explained to The Telegraph. "With so much praise for Belfast and a lot of good talk about The Tourist – because on many levels it's been the worst year of my life, and the hardest." Dornan hadn't seen his father in 18 months due to his filming schedule and the pandemic.
"Truly, you could search far and wide and it would be very hard to find something negative to say about my dad," Dornan said about Jim, with whom he was very close. "He was a beacon of positivity – that is my overriding takeaway. His kindness, his willingness to talk to anybody and everybody – he used to say, you treat the person who cleans the court the same as you treat the judge. Dad had time for everybody."
Dornan's mother Lorna died from pancreatic cancer when he was just 16, and his father was his rock during that painful time. "I've tried to take that into my own life," Dornan admitted about his Dad's place in his life. "We're talking about a professor of medicine here, an insanely intelligent man. He was so positive – he would say, 'this has happened, how do we move forward and get something good out of this?'"
During numerous conversations with the American press, Dornan would sing his father's praises, including telling Jimmy Kimmel in 2018 how his dad delivered more than 6,000 babies in his life during a distinguished medical career. "He's about to turn 70 and he's worked hard his whole life. He enjoys himself a lot," Dornan said at the time. "He still does a little bit of work on the side, in private practice. We had the whole family at Christmas, they came and stayed with us for Christmas, he just picks the comfiest chair in our home and about five minutes past 11 in the morning, he'll ask for his first gin and tonic and that's his Christmas vibe. He will very quietly say, 'Can I help?'"