Dakota Johnson opens up about the ‘mayhem’ that was Fifty Shades shoot: ‘Had I known, I’d not have done it’

Dakota Johnson is gearing up for the release of the film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion on Netflix. In a new interview, the actor opened up about her experience of making Fifty Shades of Grey that launched her into the limelight.

Dakota called filming the Fifty Shades trilogy ‘psychotic’, saying it was not everything she initially thought it was going to be.

The actor said that the author of the books that films were based on, Erika Leonard, who uses the pen name EL James, had a lot of creative control over the filming, and often demanded things to be done a certain way, even when others felt it did not help the films. Dakota also said that she ‘signed up to do a very different version’ of the films than what they ended up making.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Dakota said making the Fifty Shades films ‘became something crazy’. “There were a lot of different disagreements. 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,” Dakota said.

Dakota was cast as Anastasia Steele originally alongside actor Charlie Hunnam, who was supposed to play Christian Grey until dropping out of the film due to ‘scheduling conflicts’. The actor said in her latest interview that EL James was so upset by this that she scrapped the entire script before actor Jamie Dornan was cast to play the role. While Dakota admitted that working on Fifty Shades ‘was great for our careers’, she said the experience was ‘so, so weird’.

“We’d do the takes of the movie that Erika (EL James) 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… 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 said.

In a 2019 interview, EL James told the website Arizona Republic that she had a ‘miserable time’ making the first Fifty Shades of Grey movie.

In her upcoming film Persuasion, Dakota will be seen alongside actors Cosmo Jarvis and Henry Goldin. The film stars streaming on Netflix in July.