Jamie Dornan thought his career would follow a 'completely different path'

Jamie Dornan is best known for playing the lead role as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, but he thought his career would follow a 'very different path'.

The 39-year-old actor often portrays serious and evil characters, such as the BDSM fanatic in the film adaptation of E.L. James' erotic novels, as well as serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC crime drama The Fall.

However, he originally intended to solely star in comedy films when his career first started out.

Speaking to PA, he said: 'When I first started acting, when I first moved to LA, I only wanted to do comedy. That's what I thought I'd do.'

Dornan went on to add his career has taken 'a very different path', but he was not averse to the different jobs that came his way.

'For me, I don't understand the point of doing this for a career if you don't want to explore every facet that the job serves up, by all the different mediums of it, all the different genres, all the different challenges of it.

'And I love a challenge in life. Always have, always will.

'I love the exploration that this job allows.'

Dornan has no plans to slow down either, and intends to welcome every opportunity that comes his way.

He mused: 'I feel like I've spent the last eight years or so making the most of that and taking stuff on that isn't the same as the previous [thing] and I plan to do that for as long as I'm allowed a career.'

The father-of-three will return to our screens in The Tourist, which captures the journey of a man followed by a truck driver who is set on running him off the road. The man wakes up in hospital after a near fatal accident, left to piece together what happened.

The series will air on BBC One and HBO Max in January 2022.