When you meet Jamie Dornan

The junket that was actually fun

A junket, in my crazy profession, means an interview with a celebrity to promote this or that. The junket always takes place in a five-star hotel where the celebrity receives journalists from all over the world in a suite for a whole day. Sometimes you have five minutes, sometimes a quarter of an hour. But it usually doesn't get more than that. Moreover, there is always a breathless manager nearby who intervenes if you deviate from the questions you submitted and who suddenly stands up and says that your time is up.

Although it has everything in it to be uncomfortable, there are also fun junkets. I remember with editor Thalia who, during my RTL Boulevard days, went to interview Colin Farrell. We had team T-shirts with the text ‘Starfucker’ on them. Thalia wore it proudly. Always. During question two, Colin focused on her T-shirt. “Starfucker,” he said. “I’m a star, and you are a starfucker. So…” Hilarity all around.

I went to London 16 years ago to interview Sacha Baron Cohen, also known as Ali G and Borat. Here too, I had to submit my questions in advance and expected little fun, but Sacha had such great answers and kept going with jokes and antics that I had to stop the interview myself because otherwise, I would miss my flight. “Ah come on, May, stay,” he pleaded. “I can take you to a real nice restaurant. We can go out. I can take you to KFC.”

But usually, it’s about scavenging and rummaging to collect a few unique quotes in order to write a nice piece.

Yesterday I went to London with Hugo Boss. A party, because with Daphne Knijpinga, the PR lady from Coty under which Hugo Boss falls, it’s good fun. And the scent is grand. Moreover, the commercial is one of the most beautiful I saw this year and features the pride of the Netherlands, Birgit Kos, in a magnificent role. So I went. And if the junket turned out to be disappointing, I would just make up for it with the rest of my story.

Questions submitted and patiently waiting for our turn to be received by Jamie. We went as a group with the Dutch and Belgian press. It started surprisingly, he asked the first question. Who among us was from Belgium? His wife was currently in Ghent. She had composed the film music for a movie with Elle Fanning and was nominated for an award. That Ghent was so beautiful and that he ‘fucking hated it’ that he couldn’t be with her now.

Let’s start. He is a model who became an actor. Because in my opinion, being a model is acting without words, I asked if acting is actually easier because there are more tools at your disposal. “Well, I fucking hated modelling but I rolled into it because I completely failed at my studies and was working in a bar, so what else could I do.”

We had a conversation. About how he is still friends with his friends from the village where he grew up (the Irish Holywood by the way, and you pronounce it like Hollywood, funny right?). “I just can’t seem to lose them, no matter how hard I try.” About Instagram, which he hates, “because I don’t really care what someone is having for breakfast” and when I joke: but for lunch on the other hand… he laughs along. “Yeah, lunch is pretty something.”

Of course, we talked about scents. That he was previously the face of other fragrances, but that he wore those more for occasions (one was light, the other heavy), but that he wears this Boss every day all year round. When I ask about the memory of a perfume, he looks at the ground. He has that. His mother passed away when he was sixteen and the two perfumes she wore are collected by his sister and him. One of the scents is almost no longer available and he finds that terrible. I would love to help him find a few bottles of that perfume, but something in me finds it inappropriate to ask so I don’t. Then he looks at me and says: “I’m sorry but I can’t share the name of the perfumes, it’s like too personal.”

Jamie, I like you.