JAMIE DORNAN has opened up about how he battled depression following the tragic deaths of his mother and four friends in the space of a single year.
The Fifty Shades of Grey actor lost his mother Lorna to pancreatic cancer in 1998.
Dornan was just 16 at the time and would suffer yet more tragedy just a few months later when four of his close friends died in a car accident.
The Co Down star turned to alcohol to help deal with the loss but soon realised he was only blocking out the pain rather than dealing with it.
The Fall actor spoke candidly about his issues on the latest episode of Jay Rayner’s podcast, Out To Lunch With..., where he admitted he is 'still dealing with both' tragedies today.
“My mum died when I was 16 that was obviously a life-altering, insane, horrendous thing to happen. Then four of my mates killed themselves in a car crash when I was 17,” he said.
“I had a very rough couple of years that I guess I'm still dealing with both of [those] things today, every day.”
“I drank a lot of everything but I had this summer where I'd go out a lot, drink, not really achieve anything."
Manchester United supporter Jamie Dornan says Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has the side playing attractive football again (Image: Getty)Dornan didn’t realise depression could be the underlying issue until it was pointed out to him in a job interview.
He said: “I had a summer, I dropped out of university and I was doing a marketing degree and no interest in any aspect of marketing, and I thought ‘Well f**k this, I'm going to leave.’”
“I remember having this idea that I wanted to change and I knew I wasn't on the right path and I needed to do something else, and I got into an interview once and I was explaining what I got up to that summer, and the interviewer goes ‘So you're depressed’ and I was like ‘Oh s**t yeah’.”
“I'd never seen it that way but I must have been depressed.”
That gave Dornan the impetus to tackle those issues and in 2001 he got his first big break after his sister convinced him to apply for the Channel 4 series Model Behaviour.
From there the Holywood-born star began to carve out a career as an actor with his breakthrough role coming on the hit TV series The Fall.
He’s since gone on to enjoy success in Hollywood and is one of the front-runners to replace Ben Affleck as Batman.
