This article was published in issue 30-31 of Vanity Fairon newsstands until 2 August.
Match Dakota Johnson in his home of Malibu. We cross the succulent garden, and then descend along a path that winds through a narrow gorge of rocks towards the Pacific. To lead us is Zeppelin, a cross between jack russell and schnauzer who has lived with her since a love affair ended badly the summer after graduation. “I thought, ‘Fuck it. I cut my hair and get a dog ”, and so I did,” says the actress, who she has been linked to Chris Martin for five years. During the last London concert, the Coldplay frontman dedicated the new song to her My Universe: «This one speaks of my universe, and it’s up there!», He said, pointing to the gallery that housed his partner, driving the public and the internet people crazy.
Malibu is the couple’s retreat. Martin is surfing. She swims and whizzes down Pacific Coast Highway in the 1965 Mustang he gave her for her birthday. They care about privacy: they have a large family – Johnson has six step brothers and sisters -, and Martin two teenage children with Gwyneth Paltrow. “I don’t want kids to experience tension. You have to be kind, and it’s nice that everyone loves each other and protects each other, ”she says.
Johnson was born on October 4, 1989. Her parents, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, were in Austin, where Don was shooting The Hot Spot – The hot spot by Dennis Hopper. “My parents got back together for the umpteenth time. One evening, at the end of Saturday Night Live introduced by my mother, my father asked her to marry him again. They must have conceived me then. ‘
Dakota is the couple’s only daughter. Her parents have married twice: her first marriage, in 1975, ended the following year. While the second, in 1989, lasted until 1996. She grew up reading Charles Bukowski and Viktor Frankl, listening to Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, and riding dirt bikes.
Due to the work of his parents, he spent a childhood on the road, “As a privileged nomad, to use my mother’s words. I had the opportunity to see extraordinary places and experiences. But there were also traumatic events ». Her maternal grandmother, who is now 92 years old, is Tippi Hedren, the muse of Alfred Hitchcock, protagonist of masterpieces such as Birds And Marnie, whose career was cut short by the director’s obsession who, rejected, made her close the doors of the cinema: “What happened to my grandmother was horrible: Hitchcock
he was a tyrant. He was very talented, but power can be intoxicating. She was an incredible actress, and he ruined her life, “says Johnson, adding an episode about his mother’s childhood, when Hitchcock, for Christmas, gave Melanie Griffith a doll with the features of her grandmother in a tiny coffin. : “A disturbing and perverse gesture,” he recalls.
Johnson attended high school in Los Angeles, spending most of his time with his mother, then married to Antonio Banderas. He often visited his grandmother at Shambala Preserve, the shelter for abused exotic felines founded by Hedren. Riley Keough, her longtime friend, recounts their seventies-style adolescence: “Our boyfriends were in the same band and hung out on the Sunset Strip. We told everyone we were twins. Dakota was the coolest in town ».
After high school, Dakota’s father gives her an either / or: either the university, or the cut of the funds. You choose independence. “The idea of you taking up this profession frightened me,” Griffith recalls, “but I never feared you didn’t have her talent. I knew how difficult it is to get around in the film industry, and I hope I have passed on some good tips to you. But it was Dakota’s awareness of herself, of life, of love and dedication to work that led her through difficult moments ».
In 2010, the role in The Social Networkand in 2015, the worldwide success of Fifty Shades of Gray. Today, the enchanting interpretation of her in the film adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, available on Netflix, it is fueling the fan club beyond belief, but Keough swears that “Dakota is the girl ever.” Keough, who is Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, is well acquainted with the traps of stardom. “Someone is losing their minds, but Dakota hasn’t changed. She has always been more mature and wiser than the others ».
Malibu’s starry sky reminds Johnson of childhood in Colorado. «Living here is very good for me, I practice yoga and transcendental meditation». And he can manage his own production company, TeaTime Pictures, created to help young voices find their way in an impervious industry. He sold the film to Apple Cha Cha Real Smooth – a witty coming-of-age story starring a recent graduate who, to top it off, acts as a warmer at the bar mitzvahs – for 15 million dollars. And at the same time he can reconnect with old friends who adore his sense of humor: “One night I found myself at a party where they talked about the metaverse. At one point I say: “I have a couple of NFTs”. And everyone: “Oh, really? About what?” And I: “Of Remarkable Very Cool Tits”. And everyone laughs », she says amused.
“Dakota is very seductive,” says her co-star in Persuasion Richard E. Grant. “He would be able to bend even a telephone pole to his will.” Johnson, the only American in the cast, plays Anne Elliot, a woman who, at 19, was persuaded to break the engagement with her true love, naval officer Frederick Wentworth, as a poor and lower class. Now sailing aimlessly towards 30, at the risk of remaining a spinster, Wentworth returns: handsome, rich, and still quite pissed off. In the film Johnson shows off his comic skills, accompanying the audience from yearning – complete with wine sipped in the bathtub – until they lived happily ever after. “Dakota is very disciplined. After watching the famous interview with Ellen DeGeneres on the show of the same name, you realize that she is not the type to be put on her feet. No one is smart with Dakota, and that’s something I find very sexy, ”says Grant. During the interview in question, in 2019, DeGeneres accused her of not being invited to her 30th birthday party. In full air, anyone would have taken the hit, but Johnson replied, “Yes you were invited, Ellen. Ask whoever you want ». When the executive producer confirmed this, DeGeneres hastened to gloss over: “I must have been out of town.” It was one of the first times that fans of the host noticed a few cracks in her smiling facade. Employee complaints about behind-the-scenes mistreatment, a public apology, and finally the cancellation of the program followed. Of course Johnson could not have foreseen it: he had only reacted with his classic allergy to bullshit. Among the many compliments received on social networks for elegance and irony, we will remember the simple one: «Once again, DJ chooses chaos».
Dakota still knows how to manage the chaos, as when she was called into question for the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial: on YouTube there is a clip with over four million views entitled “The exact moment in which Dakota Johnson understands that Amber Heard beat Johnny Depp, ”commenting on the actress’s reaction to Depp’s bandaged finger. «Yes, I saw it too and I thought: Holy God, but why are they pulling me in the middle? Leave me out of it. I can’t believe people watched the process as if it were a show. My heart breaks. This is crazy. Fuck, people are sick, and the internet is a jungle. ‘
There are things, she admits, that perhaps she would never say in public, but about one she is clear: “My problem with cancel culture it is precisely the term, the idea of being able to cancel a human being as if it were an appointment. Nobody is immune from mistakes. The goal of life is to understand something. Hurting people is not good. And it causes consequences. But the idea of Twitter deciding that suddenly a person no longer exists is painful and wrong. And then Twitter uses it in how many, twelve percent of the world? That is, there are people in there who do not even know how to write ».
Which suddenly reminds her of something. “Look at my new one tattoo»He says, showing me a beetle on his ankle. She, the director of the Dark daughter Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-star Jessie Buckley got the same tattoo. She had to have Olivia Colman too, but she was in England shooting a Sam Mendes film. “They sent me a picture of them on WhatsApp getting the tattoo we were supposed to get together,” comments Colman. «I was very envious. Tell her that if you don’t give me the tattoo, our friendship is over. ” Johnson confirms with a laugh: “She was black. She called me saying: “What the fuck are you doing?” ». The scarab is a symbol of rebirth that Johnson identified with. “For me, life is still a mystery. I am in therapy, and I have always tried to deal with my depression problems in a healthy way. My work is a fortune. It allows me to travel into people’s minds. And when I read, for example, that the right to abortion is at risk, that people find it hard to move forward, that we behave like beasts with others … sense even to small things, honestly I would not make it. I’d already be in the asylum. ‘
For years, the films of the trilogy of Fifty shades. “I like sex, and when something interests me I want to deepen it: that’s why I made those films, even though the project I accepted was very different,” he says. One of the main problems was the relationship with EL James, the author of the books. «She had a strong creative, constant, daily control, and certain things she simply demanded them. There were parts of the book that couldn’t work in a movie, like the inner monologue, which was really tacky at times. At the audition for the film I had read a monologue by Person», Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic,« and I thought to myself: ‘Uh, this is going to be really interesting’ ». He took home a contract for three films. “I was 23, and very scaredHe says of the contract, and it’s hard not to hear echoes of the exclusivity deal with which Hitchcock ruined his grandmother’s career. “There were many contrasts, but in the end, even if it was difficult, I am proud of the work we did.” I ask her if she regrets having shot it. “No. I would not speak of repentance. If I had known in advance how she was going to go, I might not have done it. Anyone would have thought, “No, it’s psychiatry.” But no, I don’t regret it. After all, the trilogy tells a specific sexual dynamic that for many represents reality “.
Rumors also circulated at the time of a rivalry between Johnson and Dornan. “There wasn’t a single moment of disagreement between us. He is like a brother to me, I love him very much. We supported each other: we had to have full trust in each other ». He smiles at the memory of the most scandalous scenes. “We’ve been doing absurd things for years, and we had to join forces:” We don’t do this “, or” From that angle, we don’t. ” Sam Taylor-Johnson only directed the first film in the trilogy. As a woman she had a more delicate approach. James Foley came in for her: shooting extreme scenes with a man was different, the energy was different. The film has been a boon to our careers, an incredible fortune. But not simple. Really not easy », she concludes, recalling that the trilogy of Fifty shades it also provided her with an unexpected entrepreneurial outlet with Maude, a company that produces vibrators.
Check your watch, many commitments await you. Among them, the filming of her first action film, Madame Web by Marvel, a spin-off of Spider-Man expected in 2023 for which he is putting on muscles with the aim of performing stunts “a la Tom Cruise”, he says enthusiastically.
As we are about to leave, we notice the paparazzi. She pulls straight. «And what do I do?», I ask her. She smiles, confident as ever. Then, as if it were the most natural thing: “Well, get in the car.”
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Source: Vanity Fair
