Dakota Johnson Acknowledges That 'Fifty Shades of Grey' Was 'Psychotic' and 'So, So Weird'

As originally published by Alex Hudson on Exclaim!

The Fifty Shades of Grey movies were awful: weirdly kink-shaming for a story about BDSM, scripts that weren't so much plots as they were simply a series of events, and rigid dialogue from implausible characters. On the bright side, however, they made Dakota Johnson a star — and now she's acknowledging that the films were "so, so weird."

She told Vanity Fair, "I signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making." She said she didn't regret the films, but admitted, "If I had known at the time that's what it was going to be like, I don't think anyone would've done it. It would've been like, 'Oh, this is psychotic.'"

She said that the film was undeniably good for her career, "but it was weird. So, so weird."

She placed blame for how the films turned out squarely on author E.J. James, whom Johnson said "had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen. 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." That being said, Johnson called James as a "very nice woman."

On the bright side, Johnson dismissed rumours that she had feuded with costar Jamie Dornan, saying, "There was never a time when we didn't get along. I know it's weird, but he's like a brother to me. I love him so, so, so much. And we were really there for each other. We had to really trust each other and protect each other."

Revisit Exclaim!'s review of 2015's almost-okay Fifty Shades of Grey here 2018's absolutely terrible Fifty Shades Freed here.