Dakota Johnson feels ‘incredibly lucky’ to star in ‘dream’

• Dakota Johnson is the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson.
• 32-year-old star of Fifty Shades of Grey and Persuasion among other roles.
• Hollywood calling 2022 “the summer of Dakota”.

Dakota Johnson down the years… not least in Fifty Shades of Grey. The actress admit she likes to bare her soul in every part she plays.

And it’s because of that blatant ambition that she is now moving in a completely new path and moving closer to being a legendary Hollywood actress.

In a humorous and modernised version of Jane Austen’s love story Persuasion, Dakota, the daughter of accomplished actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, portrays Anne Elliot, the main character.

Because she also stars in and produces the coming-of-age comedy Cha Cha Real Smooth, which also stars Cooper Raiff, Hollywood is referring to 2022 as “the summer of Dakota.”

Those who have followed the 32-year-old star’s rise and who know that she lives in California with her 45-year-old rocker lover Chris Martin are not particularly surprised by her accomplishment.

Dakota practically spent her whole childhood on movie sets, and she always knew she wanted to be an actress.

She says: “I was obsessed. I always wanted to be an actress. When my parents were on set, I wanted to be on set with them.

“I just loved movies. I was always watching movies. I still love watching movies and I’m so lucky I get to make movies. I didn’t know any different.

“I thought, this is just what my family does. My dad tried to make me go to college, but I refused. I wanted to act and that was that.”

Don, the 72-year-old star of Miami Vice, was filming in Texas when Dakota was born.

At age 10, she co-starred in Crazy in Alabama with her mother Mel, 64, and began her acting career.

A number of film and television opportunities followed her minor part in the 2010 biopic The Social Network, which was about Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.

But she entered Hollywood’s elite as Anastasia Steele, opposite Jamie Dornan in the obscene Fifty Shades of Grey series, happily avoiding typecasting, she claims.

She says: “There’s not a lot like those kinds of movies, so there hasn’t been a lot of big naked franchises coming my way!

“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.’

“But I don’t regret it. I learn so much on every project. I just hope I get to keep doing this job. I’m not going to steer away from anything.”

Dakota is given a new direction in Persuasion, a funny and contemporary version of Jane Austen’s final book by Netflix.

Her character Anne has a glint in her eye and frequently makes asides to the camera.

She explains: “It was wildly fun. I was drawn to the occasionally modernised language and themes, speaking directly to the audience, and the fact a strong-willed woman remains as much a topic of discussion these days as it was then.

“Doing a Jane Austen film is a dream and there are only a few of them, so I feel incredibly lucky.”

The feisty Dakota impressed her co-stars when she memorably made chat presenter Ellen DeGeneres look bad during an interview. Dakota is incredibly organised, as her conceited father Sir Walter Elliot, played by Richard E. Grant, admits. You imagine someone coming from that kind of privilege when you consider who her parents are. You speculate that she might have some Paris Hilton-like characteristics.

“But there wasn’t. Instead, I think what that background has given her is a great assurance of who she is. She’s 32, but she has a no-sh*t-Sherlock approach.

“And having seen her on that infamous Ellen DeGeneres interview, you know that she takes no prisoners. You don’t mess with Dakota Johnson, and I think that’s incredibly sexy.”

He adds with a chuckle: “Dakota is instinctively flirtatious and she seduced all of us. If there’s a telegraph pole, she’d charm that into doing her bidding!”

In the novel Persuasion, a lady rejects a marriage proposal at the age of 19, remains single until her mid-20s, and is by some standards dangerously near to spinsterhood in pre-Victorian Britain.

Dakota says: “I really hope people see this and maybe feel like it’s okay to be figuring yourself out, whatever age you are. I think we’re figuring ourselves out for the whole of our lives.”

She acknowledges that she is unconcerned with how many people see her movies or how much money they bring in. Her reward is a passion for telling stories.

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The actress goes on: “However well a movie does, doesn’t really do anything to me. I can’t do anything about that.

“I have learned that the experience of making the film is equally, if not more important, than how the film turns out.

“I just want to have the experience and I want to discover all of the stories within me. My focus is always drawn to stories and characters that possess a profound level of humanity.

“I want to work with great people. I want to work with kind people. I want to make movies that people can find themselves in, whether it’s in the story or in the character.

“There’s many, many women within me and I find them in weird places. I feel so lucky to have stories like this come into my life and to get to work with talented people. There have been a lot of people in my life who have exploded my world into colour. I just have to be really open-hearted and to hopefully tell stories that make you feel really good. It’s more relatable for people to watch things they really see themselves in.”

Outside of the spotlight, Dakota resides in Malibu with her lover of five years, Coldplay member Chris.

Dakota can identify with him because both of her parents had children from previous relationships. He has two children from his marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow.

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She says: “It’s really nice that everybody actually really loves each other and has each other’s backs.” On the work front, Dakota talks of a deep bond with British star Olivia Colman, her co-star in The Lost Daughter. They may even get matching tattoos, she says.

Dakota was filming while the rest of the world was on lockdown, and she also started her own business, TeaTime Pictures.

It was so busy that she jokes: “I need a blanket, because it’s been really hardcore. Somehow I just didn’t stop during Covid.”

It seems like Dakota Johnson needs to take a short break.

But to do that could involve some persuasion.

Netflix will begin streaming Persuasion on Friday, July 15.