Dakota Johnson Details “Psychotic” Experience Filming ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’: “Mayhem All the Time”

Dakota Johnson says filming Fifty Shades of Grey was anything but a fantasy. The actor shared her unpleasant experience making the 2015 erotic drama as part of her Vanity Fair cover story, telling the magazine she “signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making.”

Johnson was cast in Fifty Shades as lead Anastasia Steele, a college student who begins an affair with businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). Johnson played Anastasia for all three Fifty Shades films, a role that helped her explode in popularity, but she told Vanity Fair there were issues behind the scenes, specifically with Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James.

“She had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen,” Johnson said of James. “There were parts of the books that just wouldn’t work in a movie, like the inner monologue, which was at times incredibly cheesy. It wouldn’t work to say out loud. It was always a battle. Always.”

Johnson told the magazine that her three-film contract on the franchise was “scary,” in part because she signed it when she was in her early 20s. She explained to Vanity Fair, “It just became something crazy. There were a lot of different disagreements. I haven’t been able to talk about this truthfully ever, because you want to promote a movie the right way, and I’m proud of what we made ultimately and everything turns out the way it’s supposed to, but it was tricky.”

By her description, working on Fifty Shades certainly does sound crazy — Johnson said they ended up filming takes of the movie that would please James, then takes that others preferred. Johnson even took matters a step further, rewriting scenes the night before shooting to “add a line here and there.” Johnson told Vanity Fair, “It was like mayhem all the time.”

Despite her difficult experience, she insisted she does not regret her work on Fifty Shades, but said she didn’t think “anyone would’ve done it,” if they knew what the experience would hold beforehand.

Although she described her filming experience as “psychotic,” Johnson was clearly trying to remain diplomatic (might be a little late for that). She told Vanity Fair that Fifty Shades was “great” for her and Dornan’s careers, and called James “a very nice woman” who was “always kind” to her.

Johnson’s candor is refreshing in an age where interviews rarely scratch beyond the surface and celebrities are often bound by NDAs if they do want to spill something remotely interesting, but remember, Johnson is brave: this the same woman who infamously called out Ellen DeGeneres. Watch your back, E.L. James!