Jamie Dornan has admitted 2021 was the “worst year” of his life, after losing his beloved father to Covid-19 in March.
The Irish actor was quarantining in Australia last year when he found out that his father, Jim Dornan, had passed away after contracting the coronavirus.
The 73-year-old, who was a world renowned obstetrician, had previously been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
During a new interview with The Telegraph, the 39-year-old said although he had a very successful year career-wise, the death of his father overshadowed everything else.
He said: “It’s a strange thing to end the year with all this positivity — with so much praise for Belfast and a lot of good talk about The Tourist…”
“Because on many levels it’s been the worst year of my life, and the hardest.”
The Holywood native also revealed that his family still hasn’t held a funeral for Jim, 10 months after his death.
Jamie continued: “Truly, you could search far and wide and it would be very hard to find something negative to say about my dad.”
“He was a beacon of positivity — that is my overriding takeaway. His kindness, his willingness to talk to anybody and everybody.”
“He used to say, ‘You treat the person who cleans the court the same as you treat the judge.’ Dad had time for everybody.”
“I’ve tried to take that into my own life. We’re talking about a professor of medicine here, an insanely intelligent man. He was so positive. He would say, ‘This has happened, how do we move forward and get something good out of this?'”
Jamie lost his mother Lorna to pancreatic cancer when he was just 16-years-old, and the actor recalled his father telling him: “Don’t let this be the thing that defines you.”
Speaking about his mother’s passing, he said: “I am probably a much stronger person as a result. I was young and naive and I had to grow up really fast.”
“I had to find a strength and resilience that I didn’t know I had.”
