Jamie Dornan is under a lot of pressure to—ahem—perform as Christian Grey in the upcoming adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, but he already knows that no matter what he, or anybody for that matter, does, it probably won't be good enough to please everybody.
The actor opens up to Elle magazine's February issue and admits that he is giving it his all because of passion the series' fans have for the character.
"I mean, even if you cast Matt Bomer, or Alexander Skarsgård, or Charlie Hunnam, or any of those other guys—we'd all just be doing our best, you know?" he tells the magazine. "Christian Grey—he isn't a real person. He's a superhero—a myth. He's like Bigfoot!"
The fictional billionaire hunk is just that—fictional—so Dornan is more than aware that he has a lot stacking up against him in terms of playing the flawed but hot character. Fortunately, he also knows that probably no actor would be able to suffice.
"[Grey] is unbelievable. He's unattainable," he says. "There's no actor in the world who could live up to that."
He even recalls a run-in he had with an angered fan who was clearly upset about the film's casting choice.
"The other day, this woman came up and started shouting at me, 'Matt Bomer's the real Christian Grey,'" Dornan tells Elle. "And I was like, um, okay."
As any reader knows, the books are filled with raunchy sex that involves a lot of S&M, but Dornan explains to the magazine that he has some previous experience with women and knots.
"I don't know if you've seen The Fall, but I tie up women a lot," he explains of TV show. "This year, I had maybe a week off between wrapping Fifty Shades and starting the second season of The Fall. So it was like seven months straight of tying up women."
After all of those knots, Doran says he's ready to switch genres!
"I think I'd like to do a comedy next," he jokes.
His co-star, Marcia Gay Harden, assures fans in the article that they will be quite pleased with Dornan's work, especially because he is so darn good looking!
"Let's face it, it's all about sexual fantasy. You have a hundred million women who've read about the things Christian does to Anastasia, and imagined him doing the very same things to them," Harden, who plays Christian's mother, explains. "Now, the question is: Who would you want doing these things to you? No one single person could ever satisfy everyone's fantasies.
"But I think Jamie's going to satisfy quite a few," she adds.
Is it Valentines Day yet?
(E! and Focus Features are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)