Why Dakota Johnson Says She’ll “Never Do Anything” Like Madame Web Again
Dakota Johnson won’t be swinging into another blockbuster film anytime soon.
While reflecting on the negative reviews her new film Madame Web has received since its Feb. 14 release, the 34-year-old shared where she wants her career to go from here.
“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has,” Dakota told Bustle in an interview published March 5. “It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made—and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out—decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee.”
“Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them,” she continued. “You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not.”
The Sony film, which also starred Sydney Sweeney and Emma Roberts, has been largely derided by critics, eventually landing it 12 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. And ultimately, Dakota isn’t surprised by the result, adding, “Of course, it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.”
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But while she doesn’t plan on doing another big budget film any time soon, the Fifty Shades of Grey actress acknowledged that she learned a lot from the experience.
“I had never done anything like it before,” she explained of making the superhero film. “I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now. But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing.”
Dakota has always been candid about filming projects—no matter how big or small. In fact, she didn’t hold back when sharing her thoughts on filming her cameo on The Office series finale.
“That was honestly the worst time of my life,” she shared on Late Night With Seth Meyers Feb. 8. “They were like, ‘Do you want to be in the series finale?’ And I was like, ‘Of course,’ thinking that I’d show up for like half a day. I was there for two weeks. And I’m barely in the f–king show.”
If there’s one thing Dakota is going to do, it’s speak her mind. Keep reading to relive some of her realest moments.
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Queen of Truth
In perhaps one of her most infamous TV moments, Dakota Johnson called out Ellen DeGeneres for not attending her 30th birthday party.
After the comedian joked on a 2019 episode of her eponymous talk show that she “wasn’t invited,” Dakota dryly retorted, “Actually, no—that’s not the truth, Ellen.”
The actress proceeded to point out that Ellen gave her “a bunch of s–t” the last time she was on the show about not being invited, so Dakota made sure she was included on the guest list this time around.
“I didn’t even know you liked me,” Dakota told Ellen. “I did invite you, but you didn’t come.”
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Viral Fame
When asked about the viral Ellen interview four years later, Dakota simply told L’Officiel, “It will haunt me.”
Dave M. Benett/WireImage
Fifty Shades of Candid
Dakota got very candid about her experience filming the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise years after its final movie, revealing that author E.L. James “had a lot of creative control” and “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,” she told Vanity Fair in 2022, explaining how the writer often clashed with the studio and the director. “It was like mayhem all the time.”
In fact, Dakota believes no one would’ve signed onto the project if they “had known at the time that’s what it was going to be like.”
As she noted, “It would’ve been like, ‘Oh, this is psychotic.'”
E.L. has not publicly responded to Dakota’s comments.
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Lime Lie
Who knew an innocent comment about limes would go viral? But that was what happened to Dakota after her 2020 house tour with Architectural Digest, during which she pointed to a bowl of limes in her kitchen and raved, “I love limes. I love them so much. They’re great, and I like to present them like this in my house.”
However, Dakota later admitted that it was all “set dressing.”
“I’m actually allergic to limes,” she confessed during a 2021 appearance on The Tonight Show. “So, I lied.”
Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Sony Pictures
Caught in a Web of Memes
When the first trailer of Madame Web dropped in November 2023, the internet became fascinated with Dakota’s monotonous delivery of the line: “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
Though the phrase quickly became a meme across the web, it failed to ensnare Dakota’s attention—subsequently leading to another meme-able moment when she later expressed her confusion over its popularity.
“Why did that go viral?” she stoically asked an interviewer who mentioned the meme. “I have no idea what that’s about.”
Dakota added of her viral line, “That seems like a basic storyline to me.”
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Nope on the Nepo Baby Debate
Dakota—who is the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson—didn’t hold back her thoughts on Hollywood’s nepo baby debate, when she told Today in a February 2024 interview, “When that first started, I found it to be incredibly annoying and boring.”
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A Hairy Confession
While speaking to Andrew Garfield about how they often cross paths at Hollywood events, Dakota admitted to taking out her hair extensions and giving them to fellow partygoers.
“At those parties, I’d probably get a little drunk and then just take them out,” she shared in a Vanity Fair sit-down, “and put them in men’s jacket pockets because they’re so annoying and I’d just find a place to put them.”
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for ABA
Sleep On It
Above all else, Dakota (understandably) puts sleep as “my number one priority in life.”
“I’m not functional if I get less than 10,” she told WSJ. Magazine in December 2023. “I can easily go 14 hours.”
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Mind the Gap
“How much stuff can Dakota Johnson fit in her gap teeth?” Well, a lot—as she candidly demonstrated in a 2017 video of the same name.
Among the objects included a toothpick, a credit card and $1100 in cash.
“That’s my only skill,” she quipped in the clip, adding, “Dad, are you watching this?”
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