Early life
Dakota Mayi Johnson was born on October 4, 1989, at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas, to actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. At the time of her birth, her father was shooting the film The Hot Spot in Texas. Her maternal grandparents are advertising executive and former child actor Peter Griffith and actress Tippi Hedren, and she is the niece of actress Tracy Griffith and production designer Clay A. Griffin. Her former stepfather is actor Antonio Banderas. She has four paternal siblings, including actor Jesse Johnson, and two maternal siblings.
Because of her parents' work, Johnson spent the majority of her childhood in various locations with them on film sets. though she spent extended amounts of time in Aspen and Woody Creek, Colorado, where she worked during summers at the local market as a teenager. She attended the Aspen Community School for a time. "I was so consistently unmoored and discombobulated. I didn't have an anchor anywhere," Johnson recalled. At an early age, Johnson was diagnosed with hyperactivity (ADHD) and changed schools seven times. She attended the Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California, for her freshman year of high school before transferring to New Roads School in Santa Monica, California.
Johnson became interested in modeling at age 12 after a photo shoot with children of other celebrities for Teen Vogue, and subsequently earned an income modeling while attending high school in Santa Monica. Johnson has said that she was interested in acting as a child, having spent significant time on film sets with her parents, but that they discouraged her from pursuing it until she finished high school. After high school, she applied to the Juilliard School in New York City, but was not accepted after she covered a Radiohead song.
1999–2014: Career beginnings
In 1999, Johnson made her film debut in Crazy in Alabama where she and her sister Stella Banderas played daughters to their real-life mother, Melanie Griffith. The film was directed by her then-stepfather, Antonio Banderas. In 2006, she was chosen as Miss Golden Globe 2006, where she served as the first second-generation Miss Golden Globe in the Globes' history.
Once Johnson graduated from high school, she took acting classes with teacher Tom Todoroff until 2008. She signed with the William Morris Agency and started her acting career. She appeared in a minor role as Amelia Ritter in the Oscar-nominated hit film The Social Network (2010), directed by David Fincher. She had a small role in the fantasy film Beastly (2011). In 2012, she had roles in Christopher Neil's independent comedy Goats, portraying a student at a prep school; Nicholas Stoller's romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement; and the comedy 21 Jump Street. She also played the female lead in Chris Nelson's film Date and Switch written by Alan Yang. In 2006, Johnson signed with IMG Models. Though acting is her primary work, she has since modeled for MANGO brand's jeans line in 2009 and shot the "Rising Star" campaign for Australian fashion label Wish in 2011.
In March 2012, Johnson was cast as Kate in the Fox comedy series Ben and Kate, marking her television debut. The show was cancelled on January 25, 2013 after one season. Johnson quickly resumed her film career, with a small role in Need for Speed (2014). In 2013, she had a role as one of the new hires on the series finale episode of the NBC comedy series The Office.
Johnson's breakthrough came when she starred as Anastasia "Ana" Steele in the erotic romantic drama film Fifty Shades of Grey, which was released in February 2015 and brought her international recognition. Johnson won the role over Lucy Hale, Felicity Jones, Elizabeth Olsen, Danielle Panabaker and Shailene Woodley. In answer to questions regarding her stance on gender rights with respect to her role in the Fifty Shades film series, Johnson said: "I'm proud of [the movie]. I completely disagree with people who think Ana's weak. I think she's actually stronger than he is. Everything she does is her choice. And if I can be an advocate for women to do what they want to do with their bodies and not be ashamed of what they want, then I'm all for that."
On February 15, 2015, Johnson appeared on Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary special and hosted SNL on February 28, 2015, making her the second daughter of a former SNL host (after Gwyneth Paltrow, whose mother Blythe Danner hosted during the show's seventh season in 1982) to host the show. Also in 2015, she reunited with her 21 Jump Street cast member Johnny Depp, playing the mother of his character's child in the feature film Black Mass. In 2015, Johnson starred in Luca Guadagnino's thriller A Bigger Splash, opposite Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts and Ralph Fiennes. The same year saw the release of Cymbeline, a modern film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play, in which she starred opposite Ethan Hawke and Ed Harris. She also played a lead in the 2016 comedy How to Be Single, with Leslie Mann and her Date and Switch co-star Nicholas Braun.
Johnson trained in dance to prepare for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018), a supernatural horror film and remake of the 1977 film by Dario Argento, in which she plays an American dancer in Berlin who enrolls in an academy run by a coven of witches. David Ehrlich of IndieWire described Johnson's performance in the film as "thrillingly unrepentant". Also in 2018, she starred in Drew Goddard's neo-noir thriller Bad Times at the El Royale, with Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm and Chris Hemsworth. In the film, she plays a hippie staying at a resort on the California-Nevada border where the lives of various people with suspicious pasts intersect.
In 2019, Johnson starred in the psychological horror film, Wounds, opposite Armie Hammer, directed by Babak Anvari, based upon a horror novella The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019. She then starred in the well-reviewed independent adventure film, The Peanut Butter Falcon, opposite Shia LaBeouf and Bruce Dern, which had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 9, 2019. She starred in Gabriela Cowperthwaite's drama film Our Friend, alongside Casey Affleck and Jason Segel. The film is based upon real life couple Nicole and Matthew Teague, faced with Nicole's impending death, see their best friend move in with them to help them out. She sang on three covers of songs for the film's soundtrack,[citation needed] including one of "If I Had the World to Give" by Grateful Dead. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the "intimacy of Ms. Johnson's performance is extraordinary. She is the least assertive of movie stars, yet the courage, despair and fury she finds in Nicole will lift you up and spin you around". While Gary Goldstein from the Los Angeles Times stated that Johnson "impresses with affecting range — from flirty, ebullient and adoring to stalwart, enraged and resigned; it's a lovely performance".2020-Present:
In 2021, she co-starred in The Lost Daughter, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and based on Elena Ferrante's novel of the same name. In December 2021, Boat Rocker Media acquired a minority interest for TeaTime Pictures. In 2022, she starred in the Netflix film adaptation of author Jane Austen's Persuasion. Johnson co-produced and starred in several films. She played a lesbian in Am I Ok?, which was directed by Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro. She played a young mother with an autistic child in Cha Cha Real Smooth, in which she starred opposite Cooper Raiff. Johnson played a cab passenger who has an emotionally profound interaction with a cabbie in the film Daddio, in which she starred opposite Sean Penn. Her performances in The Lost Daughter, Persuasion, Cha Cha Real Smooth, and Daddio were met with positive reception from critics and audiences.
In November 2023, Johnson departed WME and signed a representation deal with Creative Artists Agency. She played the title role in the superhero film Madame Web (2024), set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. It was produced on a budget of $80 million. She took a supporting role in the comedy Splitsville (2025) which she also served as a producer. That same year she took a leading role in the Celine Song directed romance Materialists (2025) co-starring opposite Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal.
Personal Life
Johnson is an avid reader. She launched a book club in March 2024.
Dakota is AMAZING.....
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