Playing Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades film series has been a thrilling and testing experience for actress Dakota Johnson. She became famous and well-known worldwide thanks to the franchise, but her success also attracted unwanted attention.
In a recent interview, Johnson discussed her difficulties in the public eye, including how her interactions with the media became awkward and how her words were frequently misconstrued.
The Impact of Fifty Shades
The Fifty Shades trilogy, adapted from the best-selling books by E. L. James, became a global phenomenon. In 2015, the first film in the series was released and immediately became a huge hit at the box office.
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The franchise gave viewers a fresh perspective on s*xuality and female empowerment, sparking thoughtful conversations and explorations of these topics in the real world. In Dakota Johnson’s career, playing Anastasia Steele was a watershed moment.
However, it wasn’t without its problems. As she dealt with interviews and the media, Johnson was repeatedly put in awkward situations that were completely out of the norm.
Dakota Johnson was interviewed about how playing Anastasia Steele affected her career in 2017 on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
“It’s a disaster, it is truly, categorically impossible for me to get it right [even] when I’m not wildly taken out of context.”
Johnson related an experience that she felt typified the awkwardness of some interviews. Inappropriately, an interviewer asked her about her preferred sex object. She cut it off as quickly as it had been asked, saying,
“The other day, I had someone ask me what my favourite s*x toy was, which is like…inappropriate. I was like, ‘That’s an inappropriate question.’…I can’t answer in the right way. I said, ‘I don’t have one. Let’s move on.’ But then the headline was like: ‘She Doesn’t Have One Favorite s*x Toy.’ I can’t win! I either hate s*x toys—so why am I doing this movie?—or I love them and I’m a s*x fiend.”
The media’s penchant for sensationalizing and distorting Dakota Johnson’s words has made her feel trapped in a vicious cycle from which she can’t break free. She tries to act professionally and respond with thoughtful answers, but her words are often twisted to fit an agenda. Because of this, she can no longer freely express who she really is to the public.
What If Dakota Johnson Was A Dental Hygienist?
Johnson and Seth Meyers used humor during her interview to deal with the constant misinterpretations in light of the situation’s absurdity. Johnson was hesitant to answer a question about the masks in Fifty Shades Darker because she knew it would be misconstrued.
In jest, Meyers stated, “Dakota Johnson Has a Favorite Mask—You Won’t Believe What It Is!” as the headline. Johnson considered the double standard, wondering if she would be asked similar intrusive questions if she were interviewing for the role of a dental hygienist.
“If I were playing a dental hygienist, would the questions be like, ‘Do you love teeth? Do you love people’s mouths?”
As a result of her role in the Fifty Shades trilogy, Dakota Johnson has learned first-hand the difficulties that actors face when their characters become the focus of public attention. The actress deserves the chance to grow as an actress outside of the confines of a single franchise, and now is the time to do so.
The Fifty Shades Trilogy is available to stream on Netflix.
Source: YouTube
