Monday, November 19, 2018

New Interview of Dakota with ELLE


Most celebs don't really want get into it—they've got a show, or a movie, or a product to sell. It's not that they're not serious people, it's more that they've got a job to do.

But, Dakota Johnson was up for both: getting into her popular (and very pretty) campaign for Gucci Bloom and then diving deeper, into the nature of beauty, whether fame is truly useful, and what the responsibilities of fashion and Hollywood should be to women. We didn't get too far (it was, alas, a timed interview), but here goes:

Gucci's creative director, Alessandro Michele, is almost as famous as a movie star. When did you first meet?

Dakota: We met at his first Gucci show in New York City. I thought he was so cool. And I was very—I don’t know, I thought he looked very cool and mysterious, and I wanted to know him and talk to him. He was really sweet to me, and I like that in a person.

Some people are really into scents, and some aren't that involved. Where are you on that spectrum?

Dakota: I use scent and essential oils a lot. I use lavender to sleep; I put it in the bath. I have candles and incense everywhere. And I like when rooms just smell like feelings. I like loving, cozy, romantic scents.

For you, what's a "loving" smell?

Dakota: Well, really warm sort of soft florals are the scents I’m drawn towards, so it’s been good with [Gucci Bloom]. I like them in a home, too… and I love the scent of roast vegetables and soups and baked goods, obviously. I’m a cozy girl.

Are you a pumpkin spice girl?

Dakota: Oh yeah, I made pumpkin bread the other day. And I like pumpkin spice scents and flavors, but you know what I don’t like? Those pumpkin spice Christmas candles. I’d rather smell something else.

What about the infamous Starbucks latte?

HQ Pictures of Dakota in Los Angeles today [November 19th, 2018]


Dakota will be part of the Jury at the 17th Marrakech International Film Festival

Eight unique talents of world cinema will join American filmmaker and president of the jury James Gray as jury members at the 17th Marrakech International Film Festival. 

Hailing from eight different countries, these emblematic figures of auteur cinema, daring filmmakers, multi-talented artists and brilliant actresses represent diverse artistic sensibilities. 

The jury this year is composed of american actress Dakota Johnson (50 shades of Grey, Suspiria), Indian actress Ileana D’Cruz (Barfi!), Lebanese filmmaker and visual artist Joana Hadjithomas (I want to see), British director Lynne Ramsay (We need to talk about Kevin, A Beautiful Day), Moroccan director Tala Hadid (House in the Fields), French director Laurent Cantet (The Class– Palme d’Or 2008), German Actor Daniel Brühl and Mexican director Michel Franco (April’s Daughter). 

From November 30th to December 8th, these nine celebrities will select the recipient of L’Étoile d’Or 2018 among the 14 first and second feature films in competition.

DAKOTA JOHNSON ACTRESS / USA


Dakota Johnson has become one of Hollywood’s fastest rising stars and has received rave reviews for her varied performances. In addition to acting, she has several films in development including the Amazon film UNFIT and Sony’s QUEENS OF THE STONED AGE, both of which she is attached to star in and produce. This fall, she stars in two very diverse roles. Re-teaming with Luca Guadagnino and Tilda Swinton, Johnson stars in Guadagnino’s much talked about version of Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA. She also stars in Drew Goddard’s noir thriller BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE alongside Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm and Chris Hemsworth.Next year she will he seen starring in THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON, an adventure story also starring Shia LaBeouf, and in the UNTITLED BABAK ANVARI film with Armie Hammer and Zazie Beetz.After bursting onto the scene with her performance in David Fincher’s critically acclaimed THE SOCIAL NETWORK, which was written by Aaron Sorkin, Johnson went on to appear in the feature comedies THE FIVE YEAR ENGAGEMENT and 21 JUMP STREET. She then landed the coveted role of Anastasia Steele in the feature adaptation of E L James’ novel FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, and starred in the subsequent sequels, FIFTY SHADES DARKER and FIFTY SHADES FREED.In 2015, Johnson starred in two highly acclaimed feature roles. The first was opposite Johnny Depp in the Whitey Bulger biopic BLACK MASS, which was directed by Scott Cooper. The other, a starring role in Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Jacques Deray’s La Piscine titled A BIGGER SPLASH, alongside Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes and Matthias Schoenaerts. Both premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Johnson received the CinemaCon Female Star of the Year award in 2018 and was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2016. 

Sunday, November 18, 2018

HQ Pictures of Dakota at Los Angeles International Airport [November 17th, 2018]


New Interview of Dakota with Metro News


GETTING ‘alone’ time with Fifty Shades star Dakota Johnson is proving as easy as persuading Christian Grey to hang up his handcuffs. Today, a four-strong entourage is occupying the room with us, as well as director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name), who is having a heated phone conversation in Italian.

As Johnson and I sit, politely, waiting for him to finish, I compliment her on her dress, a low V-cut, jet-black number from Proenza. Lovely dress, I say. It’s very, erm… ‘Witchy?’ she finishes with a bright smile, smoothing down her long, dark hair, newly cut with a blunt fringe.

It’s a good look for promoting Suspiria, a new art-house horror movie Johnson recently described to W magazine as ‘a crazy, crazy film… a total mind f***.’ Which, having seen Suspiria, seems pretty accurate. Though today she chooses ‘intricate’ to describe it, possibly because Guadagnino, who she seems in awe of, allowing him to dominate our interview (so we’ve cut him out and put him in his own box, below), is sat right next to her.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Dakota and Armie Hammer will be interviewing each other for Variety Actors on Actors


Variety and PBS SoCal have announced the actor lineup and schedule for the ninth season of “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.”

The first two episodes of the Emmy Award-winning series will premiere on PBS SoCal on Tuesday, Jan. 8 at 7 p.m. with episodes three and four set to premiere on Thursday, Jan. 10 at 7 p.m. All episodes will stream on pbssocal.org following their premieres.

This season will feature the following actor pairings and conversations: Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) with Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns); Mahershala Ali (Green Book) with John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman); Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place / Mary Poppins Returns) with Hugh Jackman (The Front Runner); Emma Stone (The Favourite) with Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy); Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) with Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther); Nicole Kidman (Destroyer/Boy Erased) with Amy Adams (Vice); Charlize Theron (Tully) with Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther); Armie Hammer (On the Basis of Sex / Sorry to Bother You) with Dakota Johnson (Suspiria); Glenn Close (The Wife) with Sam Elliott (A Star is Born); Viggo Mortensen (Green Book) with Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther); Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) with Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Kindergarten Teacher); John Krasinski (A Quiet Place) with Rosamund Pike (A Private War); Felicity Jones (On the Basis of Sex) with Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians).

HQ Pictures of Dakota and Chris Martin leaving Sushi Park Restaurant [November 13th, 2018]


Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Jamie Dornan mentions Dakota in recent Interviews

Video

Inquirer 

“Of course, I do,” he answered when asked if he keeps in touch with his “Fifty Shades” costar, Dakota Johnson. “I have been texting her this week because she is spending a lot of time in Malibu at the moment. Obviously, we all know what is happening there (the Woolsey Fire sweeping across Malibu).  She is safe but she had to evacuate.

“I keep bumping into her at the moment because her ‘Suspiria’ is quite similar to my ‘A Private War’ (promotions) schedule. So we have been at the same place at the same time quite a lot, which is nice. It’s also nice to come out on the other side of that mad sort of adventure we went through together (the ‘Fifty Shades’ movies) and be there representing films that are getting a lot of great reception. To see each other on the other side is a nice thing.”

Ribbed that he and Dakota went to “college” together, Jamie cracked as he laughed, “Some kind of college! Maybe that (‘Fifty Shades’) is what college is like for a lot of people. I would say that we will be friends for life as a result of it. It has given us these opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise.

HQ Pictures of Dakota in Los Angeles yesterday [November 12th, 2018]


Sunday, November 11, 2018

New/Old Outtake of Dakota at the "Big Screen Achievement Awards" at the Comic Con Las Vegas 2018


New "Suspiria" Still


New Interview of Dakota with Hurriyet


Translated by Us

With the new version of Dario Argento's cult classic Suspiria, you're on the screen. Did you watch the original movie?

Dakota: No, I didn't. I watched it after our director, Luca Guadagnino, made an offer for this Suspiria. I saw the effects of all my favorite filmmakers in that film.

In the last period, you are faced with horror-tension movies...

Dakota: I don't know if it's a different period of my life. I wouldn't have thought of taking part in thrashing movies. Now I love this type.

You've been making films for several years. At what point will you say 'I am safe in my acting and in my career'?

Dakota: I don't feel safe in what I do, I don't know if I want to feel safe. Because I like to know this obscurity. I feel that I will never be able to do it while I am doing this job, perhaps I am more aware of this fact.

HQ Pictures of Dakota leving her Yoga Classes in Los Angeles [November 10th, 2018]


Wednesday, November 7, 2018

New Interview of Dakota in "Madame" Magazine [Germany]


Extracts
Translated by Us

Dakota Johnson became famous for the SM romance "Fifty Shades of Grey". In the horror epic "Suspiria", the actress teaches her audience the horror. With MADAME (EVT 7.11.) She talks about the magic of psychotherapy and her childhood.

She never had much to do with average people, says Dakota Johnson, whose parents and grandmother were all actors as well. "We've always been surrounded by really talented but often weird people: artists, all with their own creative mind, so Hollywood probably never really impressed me, because my family is Hollywood!"

For her latest movie, Dakota Johnson dyed the blond mane witchy red. "I think every woman has the potential to be a witch, to manipulate and seduce," says the actress. "And I do not think that's a bad thing, as long as you do not harm anyone."

Dakota Johnson describes herself as very thin-skinned. "I absorb all the moods around me like a sponge, and when I'm dealing with dark issues over a long period of time, like" Suspiria ", shadows hang from it." To break away, she talks to her therapist. "I do not need a psychiatrist, but I'm a big fan of psychotherapy, I can only recommend it to anyone who wants to engage with themselves, especially people who think they do not need psychological help should urgently seek it. In the past, I often did not understand why I behave the way I do in certain situations, now I understand myself and others a lot better."

New Interview of Dakota with Collider


Dakota Johnson is having a very good year. On the heels of her critically celebrated turn in Bad Times at the El Royal, Johnson delivers the performance of her career in Luca Guadagnino‘s Suspiria remake, in which she takes on the iconic role as Susie Bannion. A challenging character with one hell of a transformative arc, the part of the ambitious dancer demanded rigorous physical performance — on top of her previous experience as a dancer, Johnson trained for six months to get the movement right — and equally nuanced emotional work. It’s easily one of the most impressive performances of the year, and just part of what makes the films so special.

With Suspiria now in theaters nationwide, I recently had the opportunity to sit down for a chat with Johnson about the film and taking on the role of Susie Bannion. We discussed what it was like to be tucked away on a remote set for the entire filming process, how that impacted the creative experience, being away from her family during the 2016 election, and watching Tilda Swinton transform into her multiple characters in the film. We also dove a bit into some spoiler territory and discussed how she perceives Susie’s transformation in the film and the special moment she wants audiences to find for themselves.

I love this movie. 

JOHNSON: Thanks! 

I’m a bit obsessed. 

JOHNSON: Thank you. Me, too. 

I talked to someone who was on set with you guys and said it was a pretty remarkable experience being tucked away like that. What was that experience like for you, being there for that period of time just working, focusing on this one project? 

JOHNSON: Yeah. It was really isolated and spectacular. Firenze is a very tiny little town in the north of Italy, an hour away from Milan. Where we were filming was up a mountain, like you can’t write this. It was up a windy road and we watched … as we were filming the season … the leaves fall from the tree and snow started to kind of stick more. It got colder and we’re in this abandoned hotel. They had completely … not renovated the hotel but it had evolved. I went to see it when I went for rehearsals. I saw like the guts of the hotel and Luca, me, and Thom Yorke, the three of us went up to see it, and it was just hollow and freaky. 

HQ Pictures of Dakota leaving her pilates class in Los Angeles yesterday [November 6th, 2018]


Tuesday, November 6, 2018

New Interview of Dakota with W Magazine


With two films currently in theaters—Bad Times at the El Royaleand Suspiria—it’s safe to say that Dakota Johnson has been on her fair share of movie sets recently. And it’s really getting to her. “Typically film sets smell like shit and industrial space and fire and engines and catering and man armpits,” Johnson quipped recently in her suite at the Chateau Marmont, in Los Angeles. “They don’t smell very good.”

Thankfully, the topic at hand was something much more appealing to the senses: Gucci Bloom, the fragrance that Johnson has served as the face of since 2017. “It feels like a long time ago, but I think [the campaign] holds up. It feels very current,” Johnson said of the campaign images. She added, of her campaign costar the photographer Petra Collins, “I think she feels much more inclined to be behind the camera. I feel uncomfortable in photo shoots, and I think she does too, so we both were like, ‘What are we doing?’ and found a sort of similarity in each other. But behind the camera, she is an animal.”

Monday, November 5, 2018

New Interview of Dakota with Broadly


"I've wanted to act since I can remember being alive,” explains Dakota Johnson, which makes complete sense. Her mother is Melanie Griffith, her father is Don Johnson, and her grandmother is Tippie Hedren. Acting is in her blood. Crazy in Alabama, the first film she appeared in, starred her mother and was directed by her step-father Antonio Banderas. Johnson has since become best known for her role of Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Freed from the franchise, she has opted for darker roles, and she takes her darkest role yet this autumn: the lead in Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino’s bold and brutal reimagining of the seminal Dario Argento horror Suspiria.

Johnson wanders into our suite at the Soho Hotel with a cup of coffee in hand and perches elegantly upon the sofa. Halfway through our conversation, she begins to rest her head upon the cushions and says, “I don’t mean to melt into this couch. I’m jetlagged and I feel comfortable with you, so take it as a compliment.”

Is feeling comfortable an important factor in who she chooses to work with? “I don’t want to work on a project where the people are not great. I want to work with people who are kind, talented and really want to be there and want to work with me too. It’s not worth it to damage yourself and to suffer through bad relationships on set.”

HQ Pictures of Dakota at Erewhon Market yesterday [November 4th, 2018]


Saturday, November 3, 2018

Dakota at the 2018 LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles tonight [November 3rd, 2018]


New Interview of Dakota with Birth Movies Death


Luca Guadagnino has always been a filmmaker who frames the human body in a really bare and unique way. Do you share this sensibility? I feel like a lot of your work – particularly the Fifty Shades of Grey films and A Bigger Splash – feature women’s bodies as important factors in their aesthetics and narratives.

Dakota Johnson: I've always had a real love for the female body. When I was in high school I studied visual arts and I studied figure drawing so I was always drawing women, nude women, every day. I don't know, I think I have such a respect and love for bodies. I get excited when there are films that want to portray women the way that I see them. Preparing for the film unfolded from the moment that Luca and I talked about it when we were filming A Bigger Splash. It was from then until we started filming that I was preparing for this movie. So that was a couple of years of research and understanding of the vibe of the film, the politics of the film. Learning from the references that Luca had sent to me. I think the thing about women and the body in this movie is that it's a tool. It's a tool of expression and it's a symbol of feminine strength. The movement of bodies is a language in itself. What inhabits the body is energy and history.

Friday, November 2, 2018

Dakota talks about the "She Is Equal" Campaign with ELLE Canada


In early October, actress Dakota Johnson got on stage at Global Citizen Festival in New York City and gave out her phone number to the entire world.

"I wanted to give women, globally, the opportunity to speak without the fear of judgment or the fear of being shut down and being told to be quiet or told that they are crazy or wrong," Johnson told us when we met with her at the West Hollywood celebrity-haunt Chateau Marmont during an event for the Gucci Bloom line of fragrances, for which Johnson is a face. 

Within half an hour of sharing her number, she received 8,000 voicemails—and another 500 each day of the following week. "As Global Citizen and I anticipated, there were threats, and people calling just to say 'Hi', which is great, but around 40% to 50% were legitimate calls," says Johnson, of the messages she has received. "They are not for the faint of heart. It’s profoundly affecting and important for people to hear them." 

The idea to share her number came to Johnson on the plane ride from Los Angeles, her home, to New York City for the event. "I was travelling to New York on the day that the Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford hearings were happening, and I found myself feelings really fucking despondent and discouraged and quiet," she says. "I didn’t feel comfortable with [getting up on stage] just speaking on behalf of women, when what really what matters to me is listening to women." 

It was just two days before the Global Citizen Festival, an annual event hosted by Global Poverty Project with musical acts curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin, when Johnson pitched the idea. "We figured out a way to make it work," says Johnson, who calls the speed with which things were able to happen "inspiring." 

"The state of the world is a fucking nightmare, but when you think back on it, it's only been two years [since President Trump was elected]," she says. "If someone reads that I got this together in two days, hopefully they will also be a little proactive. At least get up and vote—it will take you 15 minutes." 

Global Citizen and Johnson are currently working together to prepare the audio files, and they will soon be shared with the public. If you have a story to tell, Johnson's number is still up and running: call and leave a voicemail at 1-(212)-653-8806.

New Outtake of Dakota as Susie Bannion in "Suspiria" shared by Alessio Bolzoni