IN an interview with Vanity Fair, Dakota Johnson discussed the filming of the Fifty Shades of Grey film trilogy, which she described as “crazy.”
Johnson starred as Anastasia Steele, a college student who initiates a romance with businessman Christian Grey (British actor Jamie Dornan) in the steamy franchise. Johnson led all three Fifty Shades films, a role that catapulted her to stardom. Fifty Shades Freed, the third and final film in the saga, was released in 2018 and Johnson is now free to tell her side of the story.
“I’m a sexual person, and when I’m interested in something, I want to know so much about it,“ Johnson recalled of her interest in the films. “That’s why I did those big naked movies.”
But the 32-year-old actress said she “signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making,“ something she chalks up to a number of internal factors, including author E.L James’ degree of creative control during production.
She explained: “She (James) had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen. There were parts of the books that just wouldn’t work in a movie, like the inner monologue, which was at times incredibly cheesy. It wouldn’t work to say out loud. It was always a battle.”
Working on the Fifty Shades films was “crazy and rough”, according to Johnson, and they ended up recording various versions of the movie – one that would satisfy James, then one that others preferred. It even reached a point where Johnson even had to rewrite sequences the night before filming in order to “add a line here and there“, and it was chaos almost all the time.
Despite her disagreements with James, Johnson acknowledges she was satisfied by the end result, and bears no grudges against the author who cast her breakout role as Anastasia Steele.
She added that James is a kind lady who was “always nice” to her and her co-star Dornan. She also stated that she has no regrets about her work in the films.
She also praised Dornan, stating that while they played a couple, he was “like a brother” to her, and that she cherished his presence during the journey.
