Dakota Johnson has opened up about the hectic experience of making the Fifty Shades movies. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Johnson made the Fifty Shades shoot sound like absolute chaos claiming that E.L. James – who wrote the book series – exerted a lot of creative control behind the scenes on the first drama movie.
“There were parts of the books that just wouldn’t work in a movie, like the inner monologue, which was at times incredibly cheesy,” Johnson explained. “It wouldn’t work to say out loud. It was always a battle. Always.”
“We’d do the takes of the movie that [James] wanted to make, and then we would do the takes of the movie that we wanted to make,” she added. “It was like mayhem all the time.” James’s precise vision of what she wanted the romance movie to be wasn’t the only problem the first film ran into. Fifty Shades of Gray lost its leading man, Charlie Hunnam, early in the production process.
Hunnam was supposed to play Christian Gray but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. This led to Jamie Dornan coming into play the billionaire BDSM fanatic, and James scrapped the script.
“It just became something crazy,” Johnson continued. “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.”
Johnson, however, doesn’t regret making the films, although she’s not sure she’d make them if she knew how crazy things would get. “No. I don’t think it’s a matter of regret. If I had known…” she trails off. “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.”
If awkward sex scenes are something you can’t get enough of, you probably like Eternals which means you like Marvel. Why not check out our list of the best MCU characters.