Jamie Dornan “absolutely loved” pushing his physical capabilities while shooting his new action movie Heart of Stone.

While the Fifty Shades of Grey actor has dabbled with action sequences here and there over the course of his career, he has never been involved in an action movie on the grand scale of Heart of Stone, in which he plays MI6 agent Parker.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, Dornan shared that he was thrilled to rise to the physical challenge.

“I absolutely loved it! I think we are meant to push ourselves physically as humans and I like to do that anyways, keeping myself in relatively good nick,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with aesthetics, though, for me, it’s just wanting my body to work properly and be the human climbing frame I need to be for my three girls every single day.

“So, pushing that to a higher level for this, I still feel young and capable enough to do that, to know what I’m doing or at least look like I know what I’m doing in fight scenes. It was really fun!”

The 41-year-old, who has three daughters with his wife Amelia Warner, noted that the project appealed to him because it is fronted by a female character – Gal Gadot’s Rachel Stone.

“There’s a massive gap there and it’s time for little girls to have action-packed heroines to look up to. Gal has been doing her damnedest to fill that void over the last few years and I think that she has done that again with this, I’m very proud to stand by her side,” he praised. “Also, as a father of three girls myself, it’s a very cool thing to see strong, fierce women in that position and there’s still plenty of room in that market for more of that.”

Heart of Stone is streaming on Netflix now.

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