Jamie Dornan will eventually be a big-shot over here when the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey is released next February. In the meantime, fans in the U.K. can enjoy the Irish hunk in a new series that will air next month on Channel 4 called New Worlds.

Dornan had some romantic scenes to film for the show, and he and his co-star Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones) went all girly and watched the HBO classic Sex and the City to get themselves psyched up.

“Joe and I watched all the Sex and the City box sets,” Dornan told The Sun newspaper. “That helped.”

Dornan was committed to the historical drama New Worlds before Fifty came along, and he enjoyed the experience.

“Obviously we’re getting the work done but you’re allowed to have fun at work,” said. “I’d stop if I wasn’t allowed to have fun.”

Dornan also spoke to the Daily Telegraph last weekend to promote New Worlds, and said that most people from Northern Ireland – he was born and raised as a Protestant in Holywood, Co. Down – were “pissed off” when The Troubles were at their height.

“I think people from Northern Ireland have some kind of unspoken general feeling of what it is to be around segregation,” the 31-year-old said. “You have an awareness of it because you know how much grief it’s caused. It’s a tiny percentage who have ruined it for that country, that pisses everyone else off.”