Interview
There‘s pivotal scene in this fall’s Oscar - bait Black Mass in which Dakota Johnson, playing Lindsey, the girlfriend and baby mama of notorious crime boss Whitey Bulger, tells her murderous paramour - and pitch - perfect “Southie” Boston accent - to “go fuck yourself.” The couple has taken their young son, who suffers from Reye’s Syndrome, to the hospital. And in the waiting room, for a moment, she’s terrifying one. “When something that devastating happens,” Johnson says, “the monster inside you shows itself a bit.”
To allow Johnson a chance to conjure the monster inside - even for a moment - is, of course, to flip the script on the role with which she’s became all but synonymous. Countless column inches have been devoted to the casting of Anastasia Steele, the lip - biting, S&M exploring object ofChristian Grey‘s affections in Fifty Shades Of Grey. Not since Gone with the Wind has the world been so consumed by a book’s heroine, and the actress who would bring her to life. There where online petitions, Twitter feuds, and then.. an announcement: Dakota Johnson, all - but, unknown Hollywood royal - daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, granddaughter of Tippi Hedren - was officially the only girl in Hollywwod with the right mix of virginal innocence, emotional intteligence, delicate, supple beauty, sly humor, and (let’s face it) balls to enter the Red Room. “There had to be a sense of wide - eyed, excitable curiosity, but grounded in a worldliness. She had to have an inner strength that would carry her through the darkest of moments,” says director Sam Taylor - Johnson. “I knew straight-away that Dakota was the girl.”
Now the rest of the universe knows it too. Since its record-breaking opening weekend this past February, Fifty Shades has brought in $500 milion, and Johnson has established herself as not only the face (and body) of the sexiest adults - only franchise to hit Hollywood, well ever, but also as a multitalented, honest - to - God actor. “I’m always looking for emotional and psychological truth,” says Black Mass director Scott Cooper. “I got it from her beautifully.”
Prior to 2015, Johnson, who was born in Austin, Texas, but moved around with her famous parents, was building a reputation as the girl who electrifies, then traipses offscreen all too soon: in 2010′s The Social Network, as the Stanford knockout in boy briefs who, post - one night stand, shares a morning - after with Justin Timberlake’s tech mogul. In 2012′s The Five Year Engagement, as the (blonde) girlfriend who ad-libs a breakup fight with Jason Segrel. “I was thinking about a girl who is pretty vapid,” Johnson says now. “What would matter to her? I said something about his wearing Crocs.” (It’s movie’s funniest scene, and the outtakes are even better. Here are the kind of strange and wonderful insults Johnson can come up with, when she’s just riffing of the top of her head: “Go fuck your grandma… Have fun dating the queen mother.. Go read The Kit Runner at night… Go shopping at the Carhartt store together and buy some fucking matching jeans and be really cute together while you stroll the down the fucking boardwalk in Miami.” Those comedic chops will soon get their due in How To Be Single, an ensemble room-com also starring Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie and Leslie Mann. And if that wasn’t enough for one year, there’s the psychological thriller A Bigger Splash, costarring Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes, which shot for two months on the remote Italian island of Pantelleria.
This year’s megasuccess has been a long time coming. At 10, Johnson accompanied Griffith and Antonio Banderas, Griffith‘s partner at the time, to the Oscars. She still remembers how he felt getting out of the car that night: “I’m here! I have arrived!”
• Dakota about ‘The Social Network’
“It’s weird to pop into the middle of a movie where everybody is so comfortable. You feel like you’re a burden. But it was glorious. David Fincher’s movies are my favorite movie.”
• Dakota about “A Bigger Splash’
“Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s erotic. It’s enticing. There’s fruit. There’s cactus. We shot on an island called Pantelleria - which means ‘Daughter of the Wind.”
• Dakota about “Fifty Shades of Grey”
“I needed Anastasia to be funny. If you can’t laugh during a movie like that, you’re fucked. Literally. You need to have something that everyone can relate to.”
• Dakota about “Black Mass”
“I want to do a movie with Scott [Cooper, the director] where I can work with him every day. Because I feel like we only saw a glimpse of what we could possibly do together.”
• Dakota about “How To Be Single”
“I play a girl who moves to New York under the guise of needing to be independent. It’s about the abb and flow of finding yourself and finding love and why does it matter.”
Check out the full feature exclusively in the November issue of ELLE—available digitally and in select cities now, and on newsstands nationwide October 20.
Dakota wore an eel skin jacket from Calvin Klein Collection and a silver necklace from David Yurman. Photographed by Paola Kudacki. Styled by Simon Robins.
Transcription Interview JJD
Hi guys!! do you know where can i buy this issue? it´s very difficult to get it in Argentina! :(
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