As the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith,
Dakota Johnson is certified Hollywood royalty. While the Fifty Shades of Grey
actress may have spent her childhood under the radar, she has since hit the spotlight
in a big way. From celebrity kid to blockbuster star, here's why all eyes are on Dakota Johnson.
"Out of the four of you, who is the most competitive?”
“Dad.”
“I think it's a tie.”
“Yeah, me too. A four-way tie." Johnson comes from generations of
Hollywood royalty. Not only are her parents easily recognizable stars, but her grandmother
is legendary actress Tippi Hedren, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's horror thriller, The Birds.
But, as Johnson explained in a 2016 interview with Vogue, despite her A-list family, her
childhood was relatively normal. Johnson grew up in Colorado with her parents, telling the outlet,
"I worked at the local store and did odd jobs like wash horses and babysit."
After Johnson's parents divorced in 1996,
she split her time between Colorado and Los Angeles, where her mother lived with her husband,
actor Antonio Banderas. Although it wasn't a typical upbringing, Johnson acknowledged,
"My parents' friends had children and we understood each other's lives.
The way I grew up is the way I grew up. I didn't know different. In LA there's a
wider awareness of celebrity families." Due to the nature of her parents' work,
as well as dividing her time between two different households,
a young Dakota Johnson found it difficult to plant roots. According to Vogue, she began therapy at
age 3 and tagged along with her parents to set. But neither schools nor friendships stuck. The
media circus surrounding her parents' divorce was also tough to contend with. She told the outlet,
"I was so consistently unmoored and discombobulated. I didn't have an anchor
anywhere. I never learned how to learn the way you're supposed to as a kid. I thought,
'Why do I have to go to school on time?' What's the point when you're living in Budapest for
six months while your stepdad films Evita and you go to school in your hotel room?"
As she got older, Johnson was increasingly impacted by her parents' fame. And in 2014,
she explained to Elle that her first regular high school experience at
a Catholic boarding school in northern California wasn't a great one. She revealed,
"I was just miserable there. It was a great school,
but girls in that concentration are so horrific, just horrific."
"Does anybody ever not feel stressed out when they do this?"
Johnson eventually convinced her dad to transfer her to Santa Monica's prestigious New Roads
School, which counts the Olsen twins as alumni. But while it was a better fit,
Johnson was faced with gossip about herself and her family on a regular basis. She remembered,
"Things get made up. It's so, so sad. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about
it as a 16-year-old. You're like, 'What the f---? Why? What did I do?' […] As a child,
you trust someone and then they f--- you over."
In spite of the issues with her industry parents, cultivating an acting career was always part of
Johnson's plans. Even so, it surprised dad Don Johnson who told The Guardian in 2019,
"I didn't know that she wanted to do it. She hadn't shared that with us. So she's 18, I think,
at the time and I'm going: 'OK, I'll just keep my eye on her and reach out and catch her.' […] She
has the goods. She's a wonderful actress, and in some ways better than her mother and me."
Grandma Tippi Hedren confirmed that the family's
influence wasn't to blame either. She explained to Vogue in 2017,
"I didn't push Melanie into films,
and she didn't push Dakota. I think neither of us is the type to push. […] But I have told her
that I think it's important to do different things in life, to have a sense of balance."
"You're in a company now. You have to find your right place. You have to decide
what is it you want to be for this company."
As far as Johnson's real motive, she told the outlet,
"I thought, this is just what my family does. It's like, my dad's a lawyer, so I'm a lawyer."
Johnson's first brush with fame found her on the world stage. With just one small
role under her belt — 1999's Crazy in Alabama — the aspiring actress stepped out for one of
Hollywood's biggest nights of the year as Miss Golden Globe in 2006. And according to Vogue,
Johnson was actually following in her mother's footsteps. Griffith
held the honor back in 1975, with just two uncredited roles to her name. As of 2020,
the ladies remain the only mother-daughter duo in history to both serve as Miss Golden Globe.
"I just smiled and looked at the camera. And she's like [poses] …You know what I mean?"
As Entertainment Weekly reported, Johnson joined the company of other famous kids who have also
taken on the role, including Jack Nicholson's daughter Lorraine in 2007, and Bruce Willis and
Demi Moore's daughter Rumer Willis in 2009. Just a few short years after being tapped for
Miss Golden Globe, Johnson nabbed a role in David Fincher's 2010 Facebook drama, The Social Network.
"The Facebook? Stanford's had it for
like two weeks now. It's really awesome, except it's freakishly addictive."
Although she played a small part as a flirty crush opposite Justin Timberlake's character,
Johnson's performance was a hit with the director. She told Interview magazine in 2012,
"When I did The Social Network,
David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome."
"Hey mom, good morning, what are we doing today?”
“Yeah, seriously, what are we doing today?”
“Ben?!" In 2012,
Johnson got the chance to show off her comedy chops, thanks to the short-lived
sitcom Ben and Kate. The actress explained her role, telling The Hollywood Reporter,
"It's a lot of fun, she's like a loose cannon and can do or say anything. She's a little bit darker
and meaner, not necessarily intentionally, just because she's rather selfish, so that's fun."
The series only lasted one season, but Decider called her performance the best of Johnson's
career thus far, noting that while the actress has a way with comedy, since she's most well
known for Fifty Shades of Grey, she often doesn't get the credit she deserves. Her character on
Ben and Kate was elevated to something much more interesting in Johnson's hands. The outlet noted,
"The writing staff took advantage of the actress' innate comedic timing and instead
made her an active participant in the misadventure of the week."
Fifty Shades of Grey's Anastasia Steele might have been the role of a lifetime for Johnson,
but it wasn't without controversy. The film stalled at a 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes,
revealing the overwhelmingly poor reaction from critics. But fans of the book flooded
cinemas to the tune of $569 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Johnson remains
loyal to the franchise that made her a household name, telling Vogue in 2015,
"Even if it's commercial and mainstream, the subject matter isn't.
In that way I can do something mass but stay true to my weird interests."
"Anastasia.”
“Christian."
Of the character she so famously portrayed, the actress explained,
"She's hyper-intelligent […] and very tough and very loving, and her character has so
many different aspects that don't normally make sense in one person. I tried to amplify them all."
Director of the sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed,
James Foley, affirmed his leading lady's talents, adding,
"She has a very sensitive bulls--- meter, so if she does something that is the least
bit unreal she just stops herself. She is just bizarrely instinctual about it all."
"Do you guys have any supermodel water?
Did this go through osmosis?" On the cusp of mega-stardom, Johnson
sat down with Vogue for a frank chat about how much her life was about to change. It was 2015,
and the actress was still enjoying the benefits of living under the radar. While she had appeared in
modeling campaigns, she had not yet been hounded by paparazzi everywhere she went. She said,
"My most favorite thing about London is that nobody recognizes me. It's really […] cool."
With Fifty Shades about to hit theaters worldwide just a month later,
Johnson revealed her fears about no longer having the ability to blend in. She added,
"I think about my dwindling anonymity, and that’s really scary because a very large
part of me would be perfectly happy living on a ranch in Colorado and having babies and chickens
and horses — which I will do anyway." Back in the day, Johnson admits that
she was very into getting inked. In a 2016 interview with Net-a-Porter,
she revealed a tattooed quote from the novel Island that was inked in white and matched
her sister Stellas' own tattoo, reading, quote, "Lightly, my darling." Still, Johnson admitted,
"Some of the others I'm not so proud of. I went through a phase where I loved
tattoos, and I loved the feeling of getting tattooed. But now I've outgrown them mostly,
and because I always have to cover them for jobs, God, they're annoying!"
"Well I guess it depends on how you look at it."
Now that she's a household name and in demand for major roles,
the actress says she should have taken some past advice on not getting all the ink, noting,
"But therein lies my problem in life!" As much as she might have to defend Fifty Shades
of Grey's Anastasia Steele, Johnson isn't shy about sharing her enthusiasm for playing each and
every role she can get. Explaining to Net-a-Porter why she doesn't read reviews, Johnson said,
"If people are into my work, great. But I just want to enjoy my job. Artists are complicated
and sensitive people, you know? At least, I am a complicated and sensitive person."
"A lot of movies make me cry. Especially bad ones that I was in."
As for whether she prefers filming indies or blockbusters, the actress told Vogue,
"The size of a role doesn't matter to me. I don't need to be the lead
of a movie in order to want to do it. I have to love the character."
While she has never formally trained,
Johnson remains fully assured of her choice in career. She added,
"There was no Plan B. It's mostly instinctual. I don't have a process."
Not content with merely celebrating her famous lineage or continuing to
walk the line between indie darling and blockbuster star,
Johnson also finds time to speak out on behalf of animal rights.
"Oh hi! I'm Dakota. I'm here today to talk to you about rescuing dogs."
According to Vogue, grandma Tippi also had a heart for the creatures of less fortune,
focusing her attention on rescuing wild animals after she was assaulted by Alfred Hitchcock
and subsequently shut out of Hollywood. Meanwhile, Melanie Griffith grew up in a home
with an actual lion, and Johnson remembers rescue elephants in her family's backyard.
"You don't have any tigers over at that house do you?”
“In here?”
“Yeah.”
“They're all inside right now."
These days, Tippi's ranch still offers sanctuary to wildcats of all kinds. Johnson told Vogue,
"My grandmother is one of the most extraordinary women in the world. She's more quick-witted and
wise than anyone I know. She still walks around the reserve at night and checks the tigers.”
Johnson is often described as open, honest, and wonderfully frank, but if there's one topic
she won't be dishing on, it's her relationship with Coldplay singer Chris Martin. In 2019,
People noted the happy couple spent Johnson's 30th birthday together, with an insider claiming,
"She and Chris were very affectionate.
They walked around the party hand in hand. They were very cute."
And Mom Melanie had previously shared with the outlet,
"I love my daughter's boyfriend. I think that they're an awesome couple."
According to a timeline of their relationship in Cosmo, the two were first rumored to be dating
back in 2017. They reportedly called “time out” on their romance in June 2019,
before apparently getting back together soon after. There were rumors of matching tattoos and
even a bogus pregnancy. Still, Johnson has refused to discuss the relationship, once telling Tatler,
"I'm not going to talk about it. But I am very happy."
Despite her success on the big screen, Johnson feels as though
she's still figuring things out. In a 2016, she admitted to Interview,
"I don't know what I'm doing. […] I have such an obsession with making movies that I probably will
always do that. But sometimes my life can feel so suffocating, and then it can feel so massive, like
I don't have a handle on it at all, and I don't know where it's going or what I'm going to do."
"It would be quite weird if I ever got used to being on a red carpet."
As for the media and the constant pressures of fame,
it appears she's learning how to handle it all. She explained,
"There are some days when I can do my thing and be in the world and walk around,
and it's fine. And then there are other days where it's totally not fine, and I want to
crawl into a hole and die. […] I've learned to be comfortable with my life being in constant flux."
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