No Big Deal, Just Jamie Dornan Saying Nice Things About His Fifty Shades Co-Star Dakota Johnson Years Later

Jamie Dornan’s had a huge year in Hollywood, appearing in Trolls World Tour, Wild Mountain Thyme (which featured his wife’s work to boot), and now Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. This also means he’s still doing the press rounds into 2021 and he recently had some nice things to say about his Fifty Shades of Grey co-star Dakota Johnson when entreated to play a game of “Would You Rather?”

Jamie Dornan was recently asked during an episode of Stir Crazy about whether or not he would prefer to be in an erotic book club with his real-life Fifty Shades of Grey co-star Dakota Johnson or her fictional counterpart from the mind of E.L. James, Anastasia Steele. He joked he’d choose the fictional version before clarifying to host Josh Horowitz that Dakota Johnson is the real deal.

Anastasia Steele. No I’m joking. And for the exact same thing [Dakota said about me]. I think that Anastasia is quite funny. She definitely got all the gags, compared to Christian certainly. But no, with DJ because she is a legitimately funny person.

You get to know people pretty well when you are filming a series of three intimate movies with them, and Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson have been open in the past about some weird stuff they got up to, including how they prepped for sex scenes. That entailed her drinking whiskey to get in the right mindset and Jamie Dornan apparently doing a lot of pushups to make sure he was looking OK shirtless. As I said, you get to know people pretty well, at least well enough to call them DJ.

As it turns out, this was the same question from the opposite perspective that Dakota Johnson was asked a while back. In her case, she was asked whether or not she’d prefer to be in an erotic book club with her co-star or the Christian Grey character. Women all over the world may disagree, but she absolutely picked the legitimately funny Jamie Dornan over the super serious Christian Grey, echoing Dornan’s comment here that Anastasia got all of the fun moments in the movies.

Josh Horowitz also informed Jamie Dornan that Dakota Johnson chose him as well, which made him pleased as punch. It’s probably been some time since the two have spent any time together, as filming wrapped on Fifty Shades Freed way back in 2016 as the latter two movies filmed back-to-back. Both actors have gone on to other projects in the time since (and Johnson's latest was even recently shut down due to Covid), but perhaps one day down the line they'll find themselves as co-stars once more.

Fifty Shades Freed ultimately hit theaters in 2018 (in February of that year actually), but it has been some time since Jamie Dornan slipped into Christian Grey’s character, complete with his American accent. Next up, you can catch him using his funny bone in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar this weekend as the new movie hits VOD just ahead of the Valentine’s and Galentine’s day holiday.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.