The Fifty Shades trilogy made a boatload of money for actors Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. Despite the mixed reviews the film might have received, it was a success at the box office and helped boost the stars’ careers.
However, there were a couple of scenes in the movie that wasn’t exactly easy for the actors. And for Johnson, there was one intim-te moment that stood out as the most uncomfortable in the entire trilogy.
Dakota Johnson doesn’t regret her role in ‘Fifty Shades’
Johnson was more than grateful for getting the part of Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades franchise. To her, the films at their core are romantic stories, which explains their massive fanbase.
“I just really understand it,” Johnson once told Entertainment Weekly. “I think it’s an incredible love story and that’s why it’s affected so many people. Erica (EL James) did a really good job of explaining how that just can happen sometimes and you have this chemical pull to someone. Adding in the s-x makes it perfect. Sometimes you feel a little bit naughty and that’s okay.”
Still, however, even Johnson had doubts when she initially took on the role. So much so she looked for support from longtime friend Emily Blunt.
“I couldn’t talk about it to anybody. Nobody in my family knew,” Johnson said to The Hollywood Reporter. “I was cast [and] I remember I spoke to Emily Blunt, and I was like, ‘Should I do this trilogy? Because I want to have a really special career, and I want to make a certain kind of film. And I know that this is going to change things.’ She was like, ‘F****** do it if it feels right. Just do it. Always do what you want to do.’”
It was a decision The Hollywood Reporter asserted that Johnson didn’t come to regret.
“I feel like I haven’t been pigeonholed into anything [because of the role],” she said. “I guess I could have gone in a certain direction, but that’s just not what I was interested in.”
The s-x scene Dakota Johnson once saw as the most difficult in the entire ‘Fifty Shades’ trilogy
Given the subject matter, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan were subject to many uncomfortable scenes in the franchise. And it didn’t get any better for Johnson over time.
“No, it’s never easy,” Johnson once confided to Marie Claire. “It’s not casual and it’s not fun. It never got easy.”
But perhaps the most difficult scene in the entire trilogy was in the franchise’s last film, Fifty Shades Freed. In the scene, Johnson had very limited freedom, while having her eyesight taken away from her. The extremes of the scene left Johnson in a particularly vulnerable state that surprised her.
“The most difficult one by far—I think in all three movies—was a s-x scene in the third film where I was handcuffed with my arms and legs to the gate,” Johnson revealed. “It’s like a fence thing that comes down. And I was blindfolded.”
To Johnson, no amount of preparation could’ve helped her cope with the take.
“And it was kind of shocking, because I didn’t realize that no matter how prepared or rehearsed I was, when your senses are taken away like that, you can’t control the way your nervous system will react,” she elaborated. “So it was really tricky to navigate that scene. It was kind of difficult.”
Why Dakota Johnson had to have a thong superglued to her body for the film
Apart from the uncomfortable intim-te scenes, the Suspiria star found herself having to wear clothes in a way she never had before. In particular, the young actor would have to superglue thongs to her body.
“It’s not glue, but it’s sticky. They’re, like, basically if it were a nipple pastie, but underwear. But it’s only sticky at the top, it’s not sticky the whole way,” Johnson explained. “It would also come off because the adhesive would wear out, so then they would superglue it to my body so that it wouldn’t fall off. And I would wear two of them. It’s not painful, I mean, it’s barely anything. But I guess you have some sense of being covered. It’s f*cking bizarre.”
