When filming began on Fifty Shades of Gray , Dakota Johnson quickly learned that author EL James’ tastes were unusual.
Nearly seven years after the first film came out, the 32-year-old is still reeling from filming, admitting that she has “never been able to talk about it honestly”.
Until now. As she recently told Vanity Fair, “I signed on to do a very different version of the movie we had already made.”
The root of those problems? She calls it a “combination” between the studio, the director but mainly the author behind the series. “She had so much creative control all day, every day, and she just demanded certain things happen,” Dakota recalls. “There are parts of the book that wouldn’t work in a movie, like the interior monologue, which is incredibly cheesy at times. Saying it out loud wouldn’t work. It’s always a battle. Always.”
“We would do the scenes of the movie that Erika wanted to make, and then we would do the scenes of the movie that we wanted to make,” noted the actress, then 23 years old. “The night before, I rewrote the old dialogue scenes so I could add a line here and there. It’s like chaos all the time.”
Did she almost scream the safe word? Well… “If I had known it would be like this then, I don’t think anyone would have done it,” she admitted. “It would be like, ‘Oh, this is crazy.’ But no, I don’t regret it.”
However, today she doesn’t see red. “Erika is a very nice woman and she is always kind to me,” she added. “And I’m grateful she wanted me to be in those movies.”
Charlie Hunnam as Christian Grey?
Casting rumors are rife about who will play Christian and Ana (Matt Bomer is flattered; Emma Watson isn’t; Taylor-Johnson wants Robert Pattinson), but Charlie Hunnam is actually planning to make the movie with His next big project after Sons of Anarchy ends.
“There are a lot of fans of that book and I know that on the outside, maybe I’m not what people imagine,” the British actor told Entertainment Weekly in October 2013. in their imagination, they feel they have ownership over that character.” He added, “It’s difficult if I allow myself to think about it too much. I’m taking it very seriously and intend to explore the essence of who this character is, what motivates him—and also dressing well and looking good in those outfits.” suits.”
A few days later, he left the project, officially due to scheduling conflicts but reportedly due to creative differences with the film’s creative team, which included Sam Taylor-Johnson, as well as as second thoughts about whether it was the right move in his career.
As of 2017, Hunnam said he had never seen the movie because the whole thing was too painful a memory.
According to The Hollywood Reporter at the time, Hunnam was only paid $125,000 in advance for the role. It seems… sketchy.
How Dakota Johnson got the role
Young actresses from Shailene Woodley and Elizabeth Olsen to Alicia Vikander and Felicity Jones were said to be in the race, but when Dakota Johnson got the role of Ana, she kept it.
Michael De Luca told E! News, called Johnson “our rock.” He said that the actress is “helping us look at the candidates [to play Christian] to see what kind of chemistry catches our attention.”
About those sex scenes
To make Johnson and Dornan as comfortable as possible during the sex scenes, Taylor-Johnson tried to reduce the number of staff in the room as much as possible.
“I didn’t want [Dakota or Jamie] to have to reshoot those scenes,” the director told Vanity Fair.
“It was a closed set so we couldn’t be there to film those intimate scenes…but the majority of the movie shows those intimate scenes,” producer De Luca explains. “We were present in our trailer, but [the actors] had microphones attached and we had cans—you know, headphones—but I felt really awkward listening. There’s something about not being present there and there was a sound that made us feel like eavesdroppers, and so we all put them down.”
According to legend, James wanted as many scenes as possible to play out exactly as she wrote them, but Taylor-Johnson focused on “the details, the flesh, the fingers, the skin, the eyes and the looks.” outside.” She felt if they showed too much then “the mystery would be gone. You see a lot but you don’t have to see anything graphic”.
