Vanity Fair had a fun little chat with Dakota Johnson and the tea is enough to fill many a kettle. Sit down and have your cup at the ready, ’cause she spilt some spicy goss about how the making of Fifty Shades of Grey was “psychotic”. Yep, she wasn’t playing around.
In the interview, Dakota was asked whether the studio or the director was the problem when it came to filming the steamy set of three films.
“Combo,” she said.
“It was also the author of the books.”
According to Dakota, E.L. James (Erika Mitchell) was an absolute pain in the ass to work with.
“There were a lot of different disagreements,” she said.
“I haven’t been able to talk about this truthfully ever, because you want to promote a movie the right way, and I’m proud of what we made ultimately and everything turns out the way it’s supposed to, but it was tricky.
“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.
“The night before, I would rewrite scenes with the old dialogue so I could add a line here and there. It was like mayhem all the time.”
There were also apparently disagreements over which parts of the book should and should not be included.
I feel like authors of books should be involved in the making of book-adaption movies to a limit. They’re chaotic creatures.
“She had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen,” Dakota said.
“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. Always.
“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 no, I don’t regret it.”
dakota johnson for vanity fair, julyaugust 2022. pic.twitter.com/FtWxbEUMar
— best of dakota johnson (@djohnsonfiles) June 28, 2022
She also revealed that during the filming of the movies many people assumed she and Jamie Dornan didn’t get along, but in fact, it was the opposite. The two are incredibly close to this day and became even closer by going through the same bullshit together.
“I love him so, so, so much. and we were really there for each other. we had to trust each other and protect each other,” dakota johnson about jamie dornan in vanity fair 2022 pic.twitter.com/z2YUAeJtz7
— karla lasso ♕ (@koredakota) June 28, 2022
Speaking of bullshit, Dakota also hinted at more tea in the vault that she can’t reveal for… reasons.
“Sam [Taylor-Johnson] didn’t come back to direct after the first movie, and, as a female, she had brought a softer perspective,” Dakota told Vanity Fair.
“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. 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.”
Dakota, what do you MEAN? Who wasn’t treated well?
Well, I’m going to be thinking about this all night and wondering who on Earth she was referring to.
