January 2016
Us Weekly: January 6, 2016 / By Joyce Chen
A face you just can't forget! Dakota Johnson will forever be linked to the racy NSFW flick Fifty Shades of Grey - but in a new interview with British Vogue, the actress explains that the association isn't necessarily a bad one.
"I'm proud of Fifty Shades of Grey," the 26-year-old said of her starring role. "I don't need to distance myself from that. The more work I do, the more the general public sees the different things I can do. Do I think it opened doors? Yeah. More people know my name."
Johnson, who played Anastasia Steele in the 2015 film adaptation of E L James' much talked-about steamy romance novel, added that she's especially appreciative of getting a leg up in an industry that can be tough on actresses. (She is the daughter of Melanie Griffith and granddaughter of Tippi Hedren, both Hollywood mainstays.)
"Why isn't my mother in the movies? She's an extraordinary actress," she said of the Working Girl star. "Why isn't my grandmother in the movies? This industry is f-king brutal. No matter how tough you are, sometimes there's the feeling of not being wanted. It's absurd and cut-throat. Whenever I have downtime, I'm unsure that I will ever work again. I don't know what it is, but it's a definite thing that happens to me."
The actress currently stars in Black Mass, as the wife of Johnny Depp's career criminal Whitey Bulger - a far cry from the wide-eyed Ana in the Fifty Shades of Grey series.
"In my real life, I don't look pretty all the time. Nobody does," she told the magazine. "I love films that are honest... That's the thing that turns me on."