JAMIE DORNAN HAS really been killing it in TV interviews lately.
The 36-year-old has been doing the rounds on chat-shows to promote his new film ‘A Private War’ and he’s been entertaining us endlessly the entire time. (See: his appearance on Graham Norton the other week.)
Last night, the actor from Co. Down sat down for a chat on Jimmy Kimmel and the topic of Irish drinking culture came up, pretty much immediately. Jimmy asked about the drinking age in the north of Ireland and Jamie explained that it was 18, but not too strictly enforced.
It’s the same as here, everyone had fake IDs.
Jamie had several fake IDs over the course of his teenage years, and he had a few other tricks up his sleeve to make himself seem older.
I looked very young for my age, so even when I was 16 trying to get into bars, I looked about seven. I used to think that I looked older if I wore turtlenecks, so all of my fake ID pictures had this tiny wee peanut head poking out of a turtleneck. I’d always pick some really stupid course I was doing at university, like electrical science or something.
Jimmy Kimmel was shocked to hear that he got away with his ID, but Jamie informed him that the bouncers in Ireland just don’t care.
I was going to this place in Belfast once, and the guy looked at my ID and he ripped it up because it was made of like papier-mache or something, and he went “On ya go.” I went in and had a great night.
At another stage during his interview on Jimmy Kimmel, Jamie revealed the lovely way he has been taught to resolve conflict at home.
As the youngest of three, Jamie found himself in a lot of fights with his older sisters when he was growing up. Sometimes, things would get physical and Jamie’s sister would batter him with the remote control. Jimmy asked if their parents just “let them fight it out”, and Jamie explained that his parents had always encouraged the kids to write letters to each other after a disagreement or a row.
You’d just write a wee letter and stick it under the door of whoever you were having a fight with and then they’d read it and respond and then you’d go downstairs and everything would be fine.
Somehow, Jamie managed to get even sweeter.
He told Jimmy, “I hate fighting. Y’know, unless I’ve had a few drinks.”
That thing of shouting at someone you know you love, and you know they love you, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Sometimes you say, when you’re in that rage, you say things that you really wish you didn’t say.
With a letter, you can take your time, you can edit. You’re much more poetic when you’re writing. You sound more intelligent.
Jimmy remarked that this strategy could not possibly be any more anti-American.
