Dakota Johnson gets candid about shooting Fifty Shades films

The Major Takeaways From Dakota Johnson’s Wild Interview About The ‘Fifty Shades’ Movies

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Living icon and star of the horny Fifty Shades Of Grey franchise, Dakota Johnson, has shed some light on her experience filming the raunchy trilogy — and it wasn’t as sexy as you would think.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the starlet got extremely candid about her role as Anastasia Steele.

Dakota spoke about how she had difficulty with the book’s author E.L James, how she felt about shooting sexual scenes in front of male director James Foley, and addressed her behind-the-scenes relationship with costar, Jamie Dornan.

The actress described the whole process as “psychotic,” but “doesn’t regret” any moment of it. Yep, this interview is full of chaotic energy.

Here are the major takeaways from Dakota Johnson’s interview about the Fifty Shades Of Grey franchise:

1. Dakota found it difficult working with author E.L. James.

E. L James, who also goes by Erika, is the author of the Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy. Dakota said that Erika was heavily involved in filming, which caused the actress a lot of issues. “She had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen,” Dakota said.

She labelled some of Erika’s book dialogue that she wanted in the movie as “incredibly cheesy”, especially Ana’s inner monologues. “It wouldn’t work to say out loud. It was always a battle. Always,” she said. “There were parts of the books that just wouldn’t work in a movie.”

Dakota even revealed that production would film different versions of scenes to appease the author. “We’d do the takes of the movie that Erika wanted to make, and then we would do the takes of the movie that we wanted to make,” she said.

But despite her sometimes difficult experience working with the author, she did say Erika is a “very nice woman”.

2. Dakota spoke about the differences between a male and female director on the set of Fifty Shades. 

During her yarn with Vanity Fair, Dakota noted the differences she observed when filming with a male director versus a female one.

Despite having creative differences with Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson, she said that her femininity brought a “softer perspective” to the first instalment.

However, when male director James Foley stepped up for Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, Dakota noticed a shift in energy.

“James Foley came on to direct, and he’s an interesting man. It was different doing those bizarre things with a man behind the camera. Just a different energy,” Dakota said. “There are things that I still cannot say because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s career and I don’t want to damage anybody’s reputation, but both Jamie and I were treated really well.”

3. Dakota addresses rumours of a feud with Jamie Dornan.

Dakota said during her interview with the fashion mag that she saw Jamie as a “brother” and despite the rumours, she claims the pair didn’t clash on set.

“There was never a time when we didn’t get along,” Dakota said. “I know it’s weird, but he’s like a brother to me. I love him so, so, so much. And we were really there for each other. We had to really trust each other and protect each other.”

Jamie, who replaced Sons of Anarchy Charlie Hunnam after he dropped the role of Mr. Grey, had previously put these rumours to bed during an interview with E! News back in 2015.

“Look, people are going to say that because it’s a story and people like to create a little bit of hype leading up to the film,” Jamie said when asked about the alleged feud.

4. Dakota says that Fifty Shades wasn’t what she signed up for.

As mentioned earlier, Dakota described the Fifty Shades filming experience as “psychotic” and revealed that she found the working environment “scary” considering she was only in her 20s at the time.

Dakota even said that she signed up to do a different film than what she ended up starring in. “I signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making…If I had known at the time that’s what it was going to be like, I don’t think anyone would’ve done it. It would’ve been like, ‘Oh, this is psychotic.’”

But overall, Dakota said that she doesn’t regret doing the three movies at all.

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Dakota’s latest film, Persuasion, is set to hit Netflix on 15 July where she will be starring alongside Crazy Rich Asian’s Henry Goulding and Cosmo Jarvis.