TMS Muse of the Week: Dakota Johnson
(Anne Cusack)
If there’s one thing more impressive than the stars of Summit’s Twilight franchise (2008-2012) moving on to interesting, mature acting careers, it’s the stars of the smutty franchise inspired by Twilight fanfiction—Universal’s 50 Shades of Grey (2015-18)—also being able to maintain success as screen performers. Ten years ago, there probably wasn’t much foresight that 50 Shades female lead, Dakota Johnson, would have such eclectic taste in film. What’s even more interesting is that, unlike Kristen Stewart, Dakota didn’t shy away from the ‘cringey’ movie series that made her popular but actually owned up to them. But maybe that’s not surprising when you come from legitimate Hollywood royalty, such as TV star Don Johnson and movie star Melanie Griffith as your parents, and classic film legend Tippi Hedren as your maternal grandmother. If one person was going to feel security while risking being the butt of jokes, it’s probably someone like Dakota. Similar to fellow blonde millennial Jennifer Lawrence, Dakota is known for having no filter during interviews and just speaks her mind bluntly without worry. Both father and daughter like to tell the story of when Dakota graduated high school, she announced she was going to skip college and go straight into acting. Don told her if she wanted to do that, she would have to live on her own and support her own career. Less than a year later, the ingenue landed her first official screen role in David Fincher’s modern classic The Social Network (2010). From there, Dakota was cast as the co-lead on Fox’s the decently reviewed, but underseen, sitcom “Ben & Kate” (2012-13), and had supporting roles in various movies like Phil Lord & Chris Miller’s 21 Jump Street (2012), Nicholas Stoller’s The 5-Year Engagement (2012), Scott Cooper’s Black Mass (2015) and Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash (2015).
The same year as the latter two features, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 50 Shades of Grey was released with Dakota and Jaime Dornan portraying the lust filled protagonists from E.L. James’ best-selling novels of the same names. While unfazed at being the latest face of Hollywood smut, the new leading lady managed to craft one of the more interesting careers in modern cinema reuniting with Guadagnino for his trippy remake of Suspiria (2018), starring in ensemble pieces like Christine Ditter’s How to be Single (2016) and Drew Goddard’s Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), and appearing in Tyler Nilson & Michael Schwartz’s indie sleeper hit The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019); in between James Foley’s sequels 50 Shades Darker (2017) and 50 Shades Freed (2018).
(via reddit.com)
A global pandemic couldn’t even affect her momentum, nabbing parts in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s well-received drama The Lost Daughter (2021) and Cooper Raiff’s romcom Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) too. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and Dakota’s solid streak with film choices came to a halt with both Carrie Cracknell’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (2022) and S.J. Clarkson’s Madame Web (2024). While the 50 Shades movies were constantly mocked by critics and pundits, they actually made a boat load of money at the box-office. Whereas Persuasion and Madame Web failed to attract reviewers or audiences. Luckily, things appear to be looking better this month with Dakota co-starring with Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal in the romantic dramedy Materialists, Celine Song’s much anticipated follow-up to Past Lives (2023).
Something I’ve always found a little funny about Dakota’s mom, Melanie, growing up in Los Angeles was that she never went through a phase of going out with musicians, like a lot of ‘nepo babies’ do. But her own daughter, on the other hand, appears to have made up for that. From 2017 until this past May, Dakota was in a serious, live-in relationship with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, previously dated lead singer Matthew Hilt of the rock band Drowners in 2014-16, and was with indie musician Noah Gersh, who was actually her high school sweetheart in the mid-2000s. 15 years on and Dakota’s strategy or perspective hasn’t changed a beat. Whether it’s starring in a series of guilty pleasures, leading a romcom or indie drama, setting Ellen DeGeneres up for failure on her own talk show, or bizarrely saying she likes limes before quickly clarifying she actually hates them after it was revealed her house wasn’t self-decorated for her Architectural Digest tour. You can expect Dakota to march to the beat of her own wacky, eccentric drum.
