New Photoshoot + Interview of Dakota with Hollywood Authentic - Issue 10

New Interview of Dakota with Deadline at the 59th Karlovy Vary Film Festival

“This place looks Disneyland,” says Dakota Johnson admiringly. It’s her first visit to Karlovy Vary, and her attempts to take in the local sights and delicacies have been sadly scuppered by the sheer number of sightseers on the spa town’s picturesque main drag. “It was kind of hard to get around, so I went to the gym instead,” she recalls. She does, however, admit to having tried absinthe — an extra-strong local spirit also known as The Green Fairy — the night before. “It burned my nose,” she says. “Is it healthy? I only had a mouse-sip.”

Johnson has two films at the festival, Celine Song’s surprise sleeper Materialists and Michael Angelo Corvino’s Cannes hit Splitsville, both female-skewed, adult romcoms set in the modern world of relationships. Though she jokes about her dark side (“I would love to play a psychopath”), right now Johnson has found herself in a good groove. “I’m so interested right now in romance and love,” she says, “and how it can help people and save people and ignite some hope in people’s hearts.”

New Interview of Dakota with Variaty at the 59th Karlovy Vary Film Festival

“Madame Web” star Dakota Johnson, attending the Karlovy Vary Film Festival where she is set to receive the event’s prestigious President’s Award, is close to locking in final details for her directorial feature debut.

Speaking with Variety in the Czech spa town, the actor says her debut is a project “very close to her heart.” The film is one she is working on alongside “Cha Cha Real Smooth” co-star Vanessa Burghardt, who she calls “an incredible autistic actress.”

“I’ve always felt that I’m not ready to direct a feature,” she continues. “I don’t have the confidence, but, with her, I feel very protective and I know her very well. I can see this world, so I just won’t let anybody else do it. That’s the real answer.”

On top of receiving the award, the “50 Shades of Grey” alum is at the festival with two films: Celine Song’s three-hander romance “Materialists,” in which she stars alongside Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, and Michael Angelo Covino’s Cannes-sensation “Splitsville,” which she also produced under her TeaTime Pictures banner.

New Interview of Dakota, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal about "Materialists" for Empire Magazine

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In Materialists, Dakota Johnson's matchmaker must choose between Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal.

We squeeze onto a sofa with the trio to discuss love and money.

Give anyone the task of naming the most influential, charming stars of today, and odds are Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal would make that list. Who better to bring them together in a thorny love triangle than film director Celine Song, who brings them together—directed by decades of unfulfilled desire.

Materialists is more than just a trope role-reversal. All three actors take up roles that tantalising all the same: Johnson plays Lucy, a calculating art market economist who’s working as a matchmaker. Chris Evans plays one of the men, bright, good looking and some of their shared history makes him more difficult to resist. Pedro Pascal plays the other. It’s a classic romantic triangle, given a fresh edge by Song’s deeply felt perspective on love and longing. (Which you may remember if you saw her breakout Past Lives.)

The trio sit down in a North London studio to discuss their chemistry on set, how the film reflects their relationships to money and love—and why the best scenes are the ones that sneak up on you. Johnson, who is also a producer on the film, says she’s proud of Love. And it is another worthy entry into the list of ambitious romantic comedies that explore whether it’s not enough to sustain a relationship.

UPDATED: New Photoshoot + Interview of Dakota for FLAUNT MAGAZINE

UPDATED: New Interview + Portraits of Dakota and Celine Song for "LA Times" about "Materialists"

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The new film “Materialists” is something of a bargain: essentially two films in one. It’s very much a sparkling romantic comedy in which a young woman finds herself torn between a wealthy man who can offer her a life of comfort and ease versus another much poorer man who nonetheless understands the deepest, truest parts of her inner self.

It is also filled with long, thoughtful conversations on the very nature of why love and relationships matter so much, the parts they play in people’s lives and effects on an individual’s sense of identity. The movie is both a thing and spends a lot of time considering the nature of that very thing, almost an essay about itself. And it does so with a stylish, romantic sophistication and ease.

Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson: The Pizza Interview for New York Times Cooking

VIDEO: Dakota on First We Feast's "Hot Ones!"

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& now a special announcement from this week’s guest on #HotOnes, Dakota Johnson 🔥 pic.twitter.com/xSaMdnNKow

— First We Feast (@firstwefeast) June 10, 2025

New Interview of Dakota for "The Onion"

Dakota Johnson stars in Materialists, a new romance from director Celine Song. The Onion sat down with the actress to discuss love, ambition, and what’s next.

The Onion: What drew you to Materialists?

Johnson: I wanted a free trip to New York City. I’d never been before. It’s cute.

The Onion: What was it like working with Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans?

Johnson: Tough. They kept getting into the trash. You can clap your hands really loudly or try a spray, but face it: If they want to get in, they’ll get in.

The Onion: Last year, you launched an online book club. What book are you reading now?

Johnson: We finished them all! We have moved on to songs.

The Onion: How do you prepare for a typical role?

Johnson: I practice looking directly at people while simultaneously looking past them.

The Onion: What’s in your purse?

Johnson: More bangs.

The Onion: How do you deal with the accusations that you wouldn’t be where you are today if it wasn’t for your famous family?

Johnson: Whenever someone says something like that, I kill one of my parents.

The Onion: It’s been 10 years since Fifty Shades Of Grey came out. What message do you hope people took from that film?

Johnson: That sex is immoral and disgusting.

The Onion: What’s next for you?

Johnson: I’m trying to learn “walk the dog” on my yo-yo.

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VIDEO: Dakota on "Good Hang with Amy Poehler" Podcast to promote "Materialists"

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VIDEO: Dakota Johnson talks about producing "SPLITSVILLE" with Deadline at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

📹 Dakota Johnson talking about being a producer for "SPLITSVILLE" and the opportunities that come with that role with Deadline during the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. pic.twitter.com/7PIDGlbPA6

— Dakota Johnson Fans (@LifeDJohnson) May 21, 2025

FULL INTERVIEW HERE 

UPDATED: New Interview + Photoshoot of Dakota for ELLE UK Magazine - June 2025 Issue

New Interview of Dakota about "Splitsville", "Materialists" and "Verity" with Deadline

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Interview

Dakota Johnson has never been to Cannes before. “Somebody told me that people wear gowns and flip-flops and run into hotels,” she laughs. “That sounds like something I’d love to do.” In the past, she’s been more of a Venice person, she says, with The Lost Daughter, Black Mass, A Bigger Splash and Suspiria premiering at the Italian fest, rather than the French one. “I feel like I was branded as Italian cinema-only and I’m so excited,” she says.

Splitsville, screening in Cannes Premiere, is also the first time Johnson’s production company TeaTime Pictures has had a film at Cannes. Directed by Michael Angelo Covino and co-written and produced with his longtime The Climb collaborator Kyle Marvin, Splitsville follows two couples in a friendship group. When Ashley (Adria Arjona) asks for a divorce from Carey (Marvin), Carey seeks solace in his happily coupled friends Julie (Johnson) and Paul (Covino). But when he realizes they are in an open marriage, he crosses a line, and things become more complicated.

Johnson recently directed Loser Baby, her first short, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, and she’s also appearing in Celine Song’s June release Materialists as a matchmaker caught in a love triangle with an affluent businessman (Pedro Pascal) and an old flame (Chris Evans). She describes Song’s film as “really reminiscent of rom-coms that were my jam growing up. Very Jim Brooks, Nora Ephron.” And she’s just wrapped shooting on Verity, the latest Colleen Hoover (It Ends with Us) novel adaptation. Directed by Michael Showalter, Johnson stars as a ghostwriter hired by Josh Hartnett’s character to finish his writer wife Verity (Anne Hathaway)’s novels. “I’m basically the bad guy I think,” Johnson says. “It’s so fun.”

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How would you describe the premise of Splitsville?

Gosh, it’s an interesting one because Splitsville, off the bat, it reads as a comedy, but it’s a very soulful, unique comedy about two couples and the challenging dynamics of their relationships individually, and then their relationships intertwined with each other. It’s about the complexities of love.

So, Carey starts hanging out with your character Julie and her partner Paul who are in an open relationship. Are we talking a love triangle?

It’s less of a love triangle and more of a love experiment. It’s enmeshed, codependent, incestuous, and all the while really deeply loving ultimately, but pretty fucked up a lot of the time.

New Interview of Dakota and Celine Song on love, dating and "Materialists" with AP

Before Celine Song was an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, she was a playwright in New York who needed day jobs to pay rent. That’s how she found herself as a professional matchmaker.

What may have begun as a purely transactional gig, a way for her to keep making her art in an expensive city, taught her more about people’s wants and needs and the true contents of their hearts than she could have ever imagined.

“I always wanted to write something about it because there seemed to be a story in it that is massive and very epic in proportion,” Song said. “It affects every human being on Earth.”

And while waiting for her breakout film “Past Lives” to debut, she did. That film is “Materialists,” a modern-day New York love story starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans that’s heading to theaters on June 13. Johnson is the matchmaker presented with two different types of men for herself—and the internet has already started drawing battle lines. But, like “Past Lives” wasn’t really about a love triangle, “Materialists” is about something more than who she ends up with.

Song and Johnson spoke with The Associated Press about the film, falling in love and the modern marketplace of dating. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: How did you find each other?

SONG: We met up thinking that we were just going to get to know each other and be friends and I walked away from that conversation — this is just from my perspective — but I think I was still sitting there when I texted my producers and the studio being like, “I think I’ve found my Lucy.” That’s how casting works for me, it’s always about falling in love. It’s very connected to what we talk about in the film. Like, there’s no mathematical anything. It just the feeling that you get talking to someone and you’re like, oh I just know.

JOHNSON: I knew you had this movie that you were about to start making. I was basically told it was too late. I was like, but I really want to meet her because she’s so smart, and I’ve seen interviews and obviously had seen “Past Lives.” I just wanted talk and get to know her as an artist and a person and so I went into this being like there’s no chance that I’ll be in this movie, but maybe she’ll make another one. We just had such a good time talking, I didn’t even know that I was someone she was thinking about. A few weeks later we spoke. It was very romantic.

New Interview of Dakota and Celine Song for Entertainment Weekly about "Materialists"

                             

In the late 2010s, while carving out her path as a playwright in New York, Celine Song found herself with a somewhat peculiar side hustle. A struggling artist in need of a day job, she supported herself by working as a matchmaker. The revealing experience laid bare the contradictions of modern love and dating.

"In that time, I learned more about people and what's in their hearts than I have in any other period of my life," Song tells Entertainment Weekly. When she would ask clients about their ideal life partner, for instance, "their answer would be height, weight, race, job, net worth — and these are all numbers." But love is not just a numbers game, and it should perhaps come as no surprise that for the filmmaker behind 2023's Past Lives — about the reconnection of two childhood friends and the role destiny plays in who we love — love is not mathematical, but something more profound.

"I was interested in that gap between the way we talk about the partners that one wants and what it's like to actually meet somebody that is a partner for life," she says.

Song's brief stint as liaison to lonely hearts informed Materialists, a rom-com that follows a New York City matchmaker, Lucy (Dakota Johnson), who is successful at her job but not so prosperous when it comes to her own love life. She finds herself torn between the perfect suitor, the wealthy and kind finance bachelor Harry (Pedro Pascal), and her imperfect ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans), a struggling actor still finding his way. On paper, the perfect match might not be difficult to decipher, and Lucy very much looks at the numbers. But an incident at work leaves her unmoored, upending everything she thought she knew about love and her career.

New Interview and Photoshoot of Dakota for LOfficiel Magazine - February 2024 Issue

New Photoshoot and Interview of Dakota for BUSTLE Magazine - March 2024 issue

HQ Portrait of Dakota for The Wall Street Journal - December 2023

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Dakota Johnson interviews Paul Mescal for "INTERVIEW MAGAZINE"

Who among us could resist the chokehold of Connell’s chain? The appetite for actor Paul Mescal tipped from Irish boy-next-door to topshelf lust object when he played emotional wrecking ball and famous necklace wearer Connell Waldron in the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. Mescal’s intimately coordinated purée of sexy, smart, and a bit sad left hearts throbbing, as did his lust-manufacturing penchant for the shortest of short shorts. Rather than don a cape and fall down the tired rabbit hole of the Marvel matinee idol, Mescal is sharpening his indie-favorite talons with strategically un–pretty-boy roles—as an American veteran in Benjamin Millepied’s retelling of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, a troubled son in the A24 drama God’s Creatures, and a weekend dad in Charlotte Wells’s balmy debut Aftersun. As busy (and erotically potent) as he may be, Mescal still found time to chat up his former castmate Dakota Johnson, who, like the rest of us, cannot resist his charms. —RAVEN SMITH

PAUL MESCAL: What’s going on?

DAKOTA JOHNSON: Oh my god. Is it recording already?

MESCAL: They don’t fuck around.

JOHNSON: Look at your little face.

New Photoshoot and Interview of Dakota and Ro Donelly with LA Times

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Dakota Johnson is, by her own account, six minutes late. Logging on to a recent video call, she explained that she had gone looking online for a weighted blanket for anxiety and had no idea there were so many different kinds.

“I just need this one thing, and then you’re inundated with options,” she said, “and then that’s like the story of my life. I just end up putting things in a basket and then never buying them.”

Johnson has good reason to be stressed out, though you wouldn’t know it from her placid, playful demeanor, soothing, honeyed voice and varied, low-key enthusiasms. Having launched to stardom as an actor with the “Fifty Shades” trilogy and currently garnering acclaim in the awards-season contender “The Lost Daughter,” Johnson also stars in two films at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, which begins Thursday in a virtual format for the second consecutive year. The projects also happen to mark the first finished films produced through her company, TeaTime Pictures.