'Fifty Shades' star Jamie Dornan admits going 'through a bad stage' with franchise

Jamie Dornan shot to stardom after he portrayed billionaire Christian Grey in the movie adaptation of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" novels. Looking back, he admitted that he went through a rough time after doing the films because of the harsh critics.

The 38-year-old Irish actor considered himself famous for being the star of a "monsterly successful franchise that was not critically loved." While he is respectful, he admitted that the films were not to everyone's liking.

"It's a strange thing going into those films knowing that you're going to be in a franchise that will probably make so much money and get negatively reviewed, because those books made so much money and were really negatively reviewed," Dornan said in an interview with Variety.

He mentioned that the reviews were not kind. Out of curiosity, he read a couple of them in 2015 and was not sure how to react. He admitted that the criticism put him through a bad stage with the "Fifty Shades" franchise.

"I went through a bad stage with 'Fifty Shades' of reading a couple of really bad ones, but then just finding them funny and letting them drive me. One of them was 'Jamie Dornan has the charisma of oatmeal,' which — some people like oatmeal, so I thought it was kind of harsh," he shared.

Dornan remembered that review stuck with him because he does not "entirely disagree with it either." Now that he has moved on from the films, he admitted that he does not want to do franchises ever again.

"I want to try to do as much great work as I can, diverse and interesting work...I was ready to move on from this crazy chapter in my life," he shared adding, "No matter who I was playing, I don't think I'd want to play a character for multiple, multiple films. I think I'd just get really bored of that."

In passing, Dornan revealed that he received a "freaky" fan mail that piqued his interest because it was a "collage of photographs of a kid." It had a note that said the child is 7-years old and that he and his "Fifty Shades" co-star Dakota Johnson had the baby while they made "Fifty Shades of Grey."