Dakota Johnson opened up about her time in the acclaimed trilogy based on the novel E.L. James and why she didn't have a good time.
Dakota Johnson is one of the actresses of the moment. Although she began her acting career back in 2010, her real leap to stardom came with Fifty Shades of Grey, the adaptation based on the best-selling trilogy by E.L. James.
There, Ella Johnson played Anastasia Steele, a young college student whose life is transformed when she meets the handsome and intimidating billionaire Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan. Unable to resist her charms, Anastasia will discover Christian's peculiar int**ate tastes, driven by his need to control everything.
Despite not having been well received by critics, Fifty Shades of Gray became one of the highest-grossing films of 2015. Its success ensured the two continuations of the story, Fifty Shades Darker (2017) and Fifty Shades Freed ( 2018).
The success of the film trilogy, fueled by fans of the books, caused Johnson's career to take off, opening up endless opportunities for him in the world of Hollywood. However, today, Johnson confesses that making the trilogy was "very complex."
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Dakota revealed that it was not easy to put herself in the shoes of the young and naive Anastasia Steele, in part, because the writer E.L. James exercised great creative control over the feature films. “I signed on to make a very different version of the movie we ended up making,” Johnson confessed, explaining that the author had a lot of control over the adaptation and demanded that certain things be done on the set. The actress explained that during filming they had to do the shots that James wanted and then they did the ones stipulated in the script, which led to constant rewriting of the script. Which she describes as very chaotic.
"There were parts of the books that just wouldn't work in a movie, like the interior monologue, which was incredibly cheesy at times. It wouldn't work to say it out loud. It was always a battle. Always. When I auditioned for that movie, I read a monologue from 'Persona' and I was like, 'Oh, this is going to be really special,'" recalls Dakota, whose experience ended up being much different than she imagined it would be.
Although she does not regret having participated in Fifty Shades, she recognizes that there were several disagreements on the filming set and it was not easy at all to make the three films. "I've never been able to talk about this honestly, because you want to promote a movie the right way, and I'm proud of what we finally did and everything turned out the way it was supposed to, but it was complicated," she adds.
“If I had known at the time that it was going to be like this, I don't think anyone would have done it,” Johnson said. Although she does not regret it, there are still things that she cannot talk about so as not to damage anyone's career or reputation, implying that many more things happened than what she comments on throughout the interview. She also acknowledges that she does not harbor any resentment towards James or the franchise, as she and Dornan were treated very well.
“Look, it was great for our careers,” she said. "So amazing. So lucky. But it was weird. So, so weird," she concluded. And boy it was. Fifty Shades of Gray put her name on her marquee and led her to become one of the performers whose future looked more than promising. And time only confirmed it. Dakota Johnson is an actress who is not afraid to take risks and has shown it with each of the roles she has chosen to play.
She recently starred in The Lost Daughter, the Netflix drama directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in which she shared the screen with Oscar nominee Olivia Colman. This year she shone again in the indie film Cha Cha Real Smooth, Let's Dance and will soon be seen in the period film Persuasion, based on the novel of the same name by Jane Austen, which can also be seen on the streaming platform. She was also chosen to lead the adaptation of Madame Web, based on the heroine of Marvel comics and belonging to Sony Pictures' Spider-Man Universe.
