Jamie Dornan and Patrick Kielty gave Late Late Show viewers an insight into their friendship on Friday night with a conversation between guest and host that moved from funny to deeply moving to life-affirming.
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After joking about beards and talking about Dornan's hit thriller series The Tourist, the Co Down men discussed loss and how grief had impacted their lives and attitude to work.
Jamie Dornan saluted his late father Jim, who died in March 2021.
He then recounted that his mother Lorna passed away when he was 16 and that four of his friends had died the following year.
"I've always felt that I just had my, like, worth of grief and heartache and loss in a sort of 13-month period," said Dornan of his teenage years. "And I think that kind of made me resilient for other stuff maybe that's come my way."
"I think a lot of people say about me that I don't really get too hung up on small things not going right," he continued. "I'm pretty good and pretty like, 'That's fine' because this happened to me or I dealt with this when I was at the age of too young to deal with that.
"It's certainly given me resilience and it's made me a lot of the positive things that I maybe have about myself that I think weirdly maybe come from that loss. It sort of sometimes feels like an ugly thing to admit, anything positive coming out of a loss like that, but I... you have to."
"Look, I mean, I feel the same about it too," said Kielty. "I lost my dad when I was 16 and it's that weird thing where, you know, yes it's a terrible thing, but as time goes on you realise that there's something in there, which you can use and take with you. And I think you've done that."
"Absolutely agree, yeah," Dornan replied.
The actor went on to say he feels like he is in "a really good place" and "very excited about all the stuff I'm doing".
He paid tribute to his "class" wife and "unreal" children.
"I actually do feel really content," said Dornan.
"You know how much I love you," said Kielty as Dornan clutched his hand. "Right? You do. And I just want to say thanks for coming and chatting to me tonight. And also, I just want to say that I really think you're only getting started, I really do. And we're all so proud to have a ringside seat."
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