Jamie Dornan has to draw the line somewhere.
The 35-year-old actor flashed part of his penis during a sexy montage with Dakota Johnson in Focus Features' 2015 hit Fifty Shades of Grey, and in subsequent interviews, he mulled over the idea of baring even more of his body in future installments of the film trilogy. But, as he explains in a new interview with ELLE, he ultimately decided to keep his privates...well, private. Asked about a rumor that the studio offered him an additional $1 million to do full-frontal nudity in Fifty Shades Freed (out Friday), he laughed, "It was $30 million—to show one testicle."
"No, that whole thing with offering more money to go nude?" he asked. "That didn't happen."
And who knows? Dornan might've agreed to show his genitals onscreen, had any of the films' directors felt it was integral to the main characters' love story. "I don't know if I said I wouldn't. You see my arse quite a lot. That doesn't really bother me. You see a lot of Dakota's tits. I would show my tits if I had them. I just thought, 'We don't need to be flashing the rest if it's not essential to the story,'" he explains. "We're not making porn, as much as people think we are."
(Two years ago, Johnson said she was in favor of Dornan exposing himself on camera. As she said on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, "Everyone wants to see the D!")
In the interview, Dornan also elaborates on the modesty pouch story he recently told Jimmy Kimmel. "You're sort of presented with a few options and sizes. They're all skin-colored—but, like, if you'd gotten jaundice. That color. Like an ill person. I picked one out. Everyone had left the room. As I was putting it on, I saw a little label stitched inside. It said, 'Inmate No. 3,'" he says. Thinking it'd been used, "I very nearly puked. As my genitals came to a rest at the bottom of this thing, I thought, 'Someone has worn this.' I actually called the wardrobe assistant. I was like, 'Dude, what the f--k? This is secondhand?' He said, 'No, trust me.' But he lost my trust."
(E! and Focus Features are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)