Fifty Shades of Grey notoriously has been one of the most NSFW movies on Netflix for a while, but if you haven’t watched it in a hot minute, let me just remind you there are a lot of sex scenes in a lot of locations across the three movies. Like in the Red Room. Or the bathtub. So, when Dornan recently admitted to his own special bath time routine, of course the first thing that came to mind was “it’s giving Fifty Shades.”
All you need are some speakers, some suds and maybe some M&Ms (or, you know, the candy of your choice). Per Jamie Dornan, his pal shared with him the absolute best way to relax after a hard day of filming and it’s something he refers to as the “opera bath.” It sounds pretty great, at least as the actor related to Vogue.
A very dear friend of mine was once round at our house for dinner, and when he went home, he said he was going to have an ‘opera bath’ and asked if I’d ever had one. It’s quite self-explanatory, but you make the bath quite bubbly—I’m a lavender fan—and bring speakers in and listen to opera. Maybe bring in a little bottle of red wine and a bowl of M&Ms too. I’ve done it a few times. It’s indulgent and ridiculous, but it’s the sort of thing I do if I’m away filming, so my kids can’t come in and disturb me.
This is a bit wild because less than a year ago Dornan’s co-star Dakota Johnson also admitted to loving a good bath. Of course, in the actor’s case, his take on what to do in the bath is a little more “indulgent” than her take, which is just being open to jumping into a tub whenever, wherever. I’d probably call his version both indulgent and elaborate, but there’s something nice about taking the time to pamper yourself on occasion and if that means some suds and some soprano vocals at the same time, so be it.
While we see Christian Grey in the tub in Fifty Shades, this is not the only time Jamie Dornan has indulged in the public eye, to note.
Jamie Dornan has been quite frank in the past about how Fifty Shades sex scenes weren’t a picnic to film, so who knows if a relaxing bath came at the end of a long night slathering ice cream on Dakota Johnson? (Certainly seems like it would have been a good idea given the sticky situation.) Regardless, it does seem like this “opera bath” phenomenon may have been a concept that came to the actor later, as the final two Fifty Shades movies filmed back-to-back, wrapping filming in April of 2016 for theatrical releases in 2017 for Darker and 2018 for Freed.
In the time since, Dornan has said he would not like to inhabit a role like Christian Grey again, and has instead embarked upon an eclectic collection of roles in projects like Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar, Wild Mountain Thyme (with its wild ending) and the TV series The Tourist. His trajectory reminds me a lot of what Daniel Radcliffe did after Harry Potter or what Robert Pattinson did after Twilight ended. While some of his pastimes might fit in with what his most famous character, his career is definitely going in a very different direction these days.