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Dakota Johnson comes from a family of actors. She is the daughter of the actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Her grandmother is the actress Tippi Hedren. She was born in Texas. She is currently 29 years old. She got her first role in a film entitled Crazy in Alabama that was released in 1999. She is best known for her performances in Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, The Social Network, and How To Be Single.

She played the lead character of Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey opposite actor Jamie Dornan who played the character of Christian Grey in the film. The Grey character is a billionaire who is tormented by his quirky proclivities. Grey has money and everything that goes with it, yet still feels unfulfilled until he meets Anastasia, who becomes the woman to help him with his fantasies and desires.

Independent UK reported that both actors were paid $250,000 plus bonuses for their performances in the film Fifty Shades of Grey, which rapidly became the highest box-office-success for an R-rated film by breaking the record in the UK in a mere 10 days after release. The film, made for a production budget of $40 million, earned over $550 million worldwide at the box office.

The sequel called Fifty Shades Darker was made with a production budget of $55 million. In that film, both Johnson and Dornan were paid a salary in the seven figures. It was released in 2017. It captured a total worldwide gross box office of over $374 million. The third film in the trilogy called Fifty Shades Freed, was released on February 9, 2018.

Fifty Shades of Grey was a breakout film for Dakota Johnson that propelled her into superstardom with her fantasy portrayal of a billionaire’s wife. Now, this lifestyle seems like her new reality.

A Family Affair

Dakota Johnson’s acting career started in 1999 as a family affair with her first film role in the movie entitled Crazy in Alabama. In that film, she starred with her half-sister, Stella Banderas, who is the daughter of the actor/director Antonio Banderas. In the film, Dakota and Stella played the daughters of their real mother Melanie Griffith who also acted in the movie. Antonio Banderas, who is Dakota’s stepfather, directed the film.

Dakota Johnson’s parents, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson have not seen any of the Fifty Shades films. Dakota is quoted as saying that would be “inappropriate.” In fact, both of her parents advised her not to take the role.

About the Fifty Shades films, Dakota has said that she is proud of her work in the movies and that she disagrees with people’s opinions that the character of Anastasia Steele is weak. She thinks Ana is stronger than the male character Christian Grey in the films because everything she does is her choice. Dakota said, “If I can be an advocate for women to do what they want to do with their bodies and not be ashamed of what they want, then I'm all for that.”

Work Out Routine To Look Like The Perfect Anastasia Steele

Even if it seems that the life of a billionaire’s consort would be easy, looking fabulous for the role was not. In order to train for the films, Dakota had to undergo seriously physical workouts while being instructed by her personal trainer Ramona Braganza. Naturally, Dakota wanted her body to look its best when spending so much time on-screen without wearing any clothes.

The rigorous workout program included practicing Bikram-style yoga in a room with a high-temperature and a 3-2-1 routine. The 3-2-1 regime consists of three cardio workouts, followed by two circuit portions, and finishing up with one core exercise. The cardio portions were performed on a cardio machine and a rowing machine. While doing the circuit routines, hand-weights and ankle-weights were used by Dakota.

The objectives of these workouts were to improve her posture, shape the shoulders and the arms, and also to accentuate Dakota’s small, tight, waist. Because of this workout regime, Dakota has a terrific body. The marvelous results can be seen in the films.

Romance On The Red Carpet

The film premiere for Fifty Shades Freed held in Paris in time to be just before Valentine’s Day 2018 on purpose. Critics have almost universally panned the films. Fifty Shades of Grey won five Razzies in 2016. Razzies are awards given to the worst films of the year according to critics. Nevertheless, the audience loved this film and the two others that followed.

Dakota and Jamie Dornan, who plays the character of Christian Grey in the films, came to the premiere as Mr. and Mrs. Grey because in the third installation of the trilogy the two got married. Dakota wore an elegant all-white Prada dress covered with sequins. Dornan wore a black velvet jacket and matching pants with a white shirt.

The theme of the final installation is that once Christian Grey is freed from his obsession with his peculiar desires, he can find true romance.

Dakota Johnson Had To Learn About Christian Grey's World

Do billionaires really have weird personal lives? When a person can have anything that they want, probably indulging in fantasies according to personal tastes is a given. Billionaires do not get rich by denying themselves the things that they want; quite the opposite. However, with Dakota, her personal tastes are decidedly different than those of the character Anastasia that she plays in the films.

When Dakota filmed the first Fifty Shades of Grey, she was just turning 24 years old. She had never been nude for a film. She had virtually no knowledge of the world of BDSM. She had to learn everything she could about it. The actor Jamie Dornan who played Christian Grey in the films had to know even more because in the films he was supposed to be an expert. For the filming, Dakota even had an official advisor on the set with her.

Who’s In Charge?

The Shades of Grey film series is based on novels penned by E.L. James, who is a British author. She is a 54-year-old woman named Erika Mitchell in real life. The story about a young woman who is in a relationship that is both physically and emotionally controlling would be unthinkable for Dakota in her own life. She does not like being with a person that is controlling and prefers a romantic relationship that is more of a collaboration.

In her personal life, Dakota dated Jordan Masterson, who is an actor. She also went out with Matthew Hit, who is a singer. He current boyfriend is Chris Martin who is the lead singer of the band Coldplay.

After attending the premiere in Paris for Fifty Shades Freed, she went out with her real-life boyfriend, Chris Martin, to celebrate. Dakota likes him because he is respectful and supportive of her acting career. She says it is important for everyone to realize that she played the character of Anastasia Steele, however, she is not anything like her in reality at all.

A Warning To All Powerful Hollywood Men

A controversy surrounds the Shades of Grey films in light of all the discussion of the misconduct of men in the film business and elsewhere as popularized by the #MeToo movement and the Time’s Up campaign.

Dakota was warned by her family members, who are actors, that there are powerful men in Hollywood who will “try anything.” But she does not put up with any of that nonsense. There is a huge difference between acting in a provocative film, which requires filming risky scenes and being forced against one’s will off-screen.

The legendary “casting couch” that Hollywood was notorious for having in the past, is now gone. Not only has it been tossed outside, it has been burned up in a bonfire of women’s empowerment. Dakota is thankful for the national conversation about these issues and says it is powerful.

Dakota plans to take on many acting roles in the future. Johnson hopes fans and Hollywood execs will not confuse her with the characters she plays. Some fans have thanked her for helping them feel more liberated. In response to that, she says to give the credit to the author E. L. James, not her.

The Ultimate Wedding Dress

A billionaire’s bride has to have a magnificent wedding with a wedding dress made for a queen. The wedding dress used for the Grey films was custom made to fit Dakota perfectly. The wardrobe experts really made a wedding dress for her. It took a very long time to make it. There were many fittings that were uncomfortable and tiresome.

Dakota said that it never felt like her clothes at all. Instead, it felt more like a costume. The wedding dress was stunning. It is the kind of thing that Dakota says a person would never get to wear in real life. She did think that wearing it for the scenes in the film was a fun thing to do. Hopefully, someone saved it, so that she might borrow it in the future because she doubts she could ever have such a wedding dress made if she ever gets married in real life.

Time Traveling While Filming The Movies

Dakota Johnson, as Anastasia Steele, was not limited by time and space reality.

Even though Dakota has said publicly, it was a challenge to keep her physical shape for the four years since she first started filming the Shades of Grey series, she is fudging a bit on the facts. It turns out the trilogy was planned from the outset and shot rapidly in a method called “back-to-back” in the film business.

The second film in the series Fifty Shades Darker was released in 2017. The third and final part, Fifty Shades Freed was just released in February 2018. However, both films were shot during 2016.

Movie filming does not have to be done in any linear fashion. In fact, most of the time, the scenes in any film are shot out of their order in comparison to the film’s storyline. It took five straight months of shooting, five days a week, in Vancouver, Canada, and two weeks in France, to complete the filming of both Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

The Daily Life Of An Imaginary Billionaire’s Wife

To be the perfect specimen of an imaginary billionaire’s wife that is being viewed by millions of fans, it takes more than a few simple efforts to pull off the illusion. This was the life of Dakota while shooting the films.

There were the daily workouts we described above. Those all happened in a 50-foot trailer gym that was on the set. There was the daily regime of what she can eat. For Dakota, this was a steady diet of lean meats, quinoa, vegetables, and healthy juice blends. All of her food was prepared by a chef in Vancouver and brought to her on the set. The diet was simple, nutritious, and stayed the same for the many months of filming. There was no time or inclination to go out to dinner at fancy restaurants or to enjoy lavish parties.

During her time off from filming on the weekends, she would sneak away to go horseback riding. This was her guilty pleasure because horse-back riding or any other activity that might result in a physical injury to an actor playing a lead in a film is prohibited by the insurance company of the film. If she fell and broke an arm or a leg it could delay the production and cost millions. Luckily, she got away with this secret indulgence.

The Risky Scenes Were Not Fun

Even though the hot scenes comes through on the screen, Dakota’s actual experiences during filming were a mixed bag of amusement, anxiety, and having panic attacks.

The amusement came when she had to teach her co-star how to remove her underwear. When rehearsing this together, the two of them found the whole process so hilarious they could barely stop laughing.

The anxiety came because Dakota never did such things before. In making a film, a scene can be repeated many times. Each performance has to look as if it is created as a convincing illusion of reality. There is nothing that fun about doing the same pretend act dozens of times for the camera and in front of a crew.

In some scenes, she is confined and not able to speak or see. Even though there was a safe environment, the physicality of being deprived of her normal senses over a long period caused her to have panic attacks.

Dakota Becomes A Ballerina

During the last two weeks of filming in France during 2016, Dakota started training for her next film role, which is to be a ballerina. Dakota became a magnificent ballerina. Her body was in perfect shape for the role, however, the dance moves are something she had to learn anew. Just because she was in perfect physical shape, did not necessarily mean that she could spin around on the tips of her toes. Anyone, who has tried this, knows it really hurts. Dakota learned how to do it for the role.

If she was going to learn to be a ballerina for a film role, the perfect place to do this was in France. At the end of filming the Shades of Grey films, Dakota started practicing to become the character of Susie Bannion for the film entitled Suspira. Suspira is in the genres of fantasy, horror, and suspense. It is currently in post-production to be released sometime in the future.

Her Roles In Other Films

Can you name other films that Dakota Johnson had roles in beside the Fifty Shades series? She had cameo roles in lots of films, however one of the most memorable, in the early part of her career, was her appearance in 21 Jump Street. In that film, she was recruited by the character played by Ice Cube to be part of his undercover “beat” team that invaded the high school to snitch on their friends. Her potty-mouthed descriptions are legendary.

A foreshadowing of things to come was her appearance in The Social Network about the creation of Facebook. In that film, she accidentally meets Mark Zuckerberg and goes back to his apartment for a hookup. This set the trend for her in terms of acting alongside male billionaire characters in films.

Dakota also had a significant presence in films like The Five-Year Engagement, Beastly, and Goats.

Potential Regrets That Changed To International Fame

Dakota Johnson was never completely certain that doing the Fifty Shades series would help or possibly destroy her career. The project was so edgy that the knife of potential success or failure could cut either way. After the first film Fifty Shades of Grey was released she is quoted as saying that maybe she had “F*ed up.”

This is the risk of doing something very edgy and not knowing if the global audience will accept it or not. It turns out that her choice was the correct one because her international fame is now very secure. She can pick and choose from any project that she fancies to take on.

To be sitting in this position is a rare thing in Hollywood. What we like about Dakota is she is never afraid to go against the trend. Her comedic performance in How to Be Single released in 2016 is hilarious. Her detractors say that Fifty Shades Freed is an unintentional comedy. To this, we think Dakota is silently laughing all the way to the bank.

She Had A Bizarre Encounter With A Skunk

Famous, rich, or not, when one encounters a skunk in the middle of the night, the skunks wins. Dakota told this story on the Tonight Show when Jimmy Fallon asked her about the skunk encounter.

Dakota said she was staying at a rustic lodge resort in Big Sur, California. Big Sur is a favored place for those who want to have some quiet time, beautiful walks in the woods, and get in touch with nature.

Dakota let her dog out at night to go take a pee. Unfortunately, he encountered a skunk outside. When he returned to the cabin, he stunk to high heaven. These rustic resorts are not like five-star hotels where there is staff on hand for every client’s need 24/7. The only person she could find awake at that hour in the night was the maintenance man who doubled as the nighttime security. She asked him for tomato juice. There was none available. Big Sur is far away for big cities and all the stores in the little town were closed.

The best the maintenance man could do was to give Dakota three tomatoes. She ended up cutting them into slices and laying them out on the top of her dog. It did not take away the smell, however, this did make the story hilarious.

Is Everything About Hanky Panky?

Seth Meyers, who interviewed Dakota for the Late Night show noted that everything he could say about the Fifty Shades films had unintended saucy undertones. Meyers said that even though the subject matter of the films was provocative, he found them “titillating.” That word is a perfectly good word and Meyers used it correctly. It means “exciting” for those who are wondering.

Dakota complains to Meyers that everything she says is taken out of context. She gave an example. She said once that she was asked: “What is your favorite toy?” At first, she responded that this was an inappropriate question. Then after being pressed to answer, she said that she did not have a favorite. But as you can imagine, the tabloids went crazy and started to fabricate lies about her preference.

Things She Never Did Before

Dakota Johnson was asked to try nine things that she had never done before by Allure for a YouTube video produced by Allure.

In the video, she succeeds in using her feet to hold her mobile phone to take a selfie photo. She is asked to make friends with a chicken and hold the animal in her lap. In the video you can see the chicken flapping its wings and Dakota turning her head away. Neither one felt this was a friendly experience. However, the chicken eventually calmed down and sat proudly on Dakota’s arm.

She plays a musical instrument called the Theremin. To play it, one passes their hands near an upright metal tube and on the other side near a metal loop to make the instrument emit eerie sounds like those used in horror movies. She remarks that the first person to master playing this instrument was a woman, which is true.

She eats a strange fruit called a jujube. She puts on LED false eyelashes. She describes one of her favorite movies, Home Alone, in twenty seconds. She puts on makeup left-handed and applies a facial mask made from snail mucus. All of these things a real billionaire’s wife might do in their spare time, especially the snail mucus facial.

Downing Shots With Stephen Colbert

Dakota went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after the two of them met at the Met Ball. Dakota agreed to come on to the show only if they could enjoy drinks together. Colbert agreed and asked her choice of alcohol. She told him she wanted to drink tequila. Tequila is not Colbert’s favorite liquor, however, he agreed to the challenge.

The interview gets progressively funnier as the two of them obviously get a bit tipsy from the shots of tequila that they threw down. They talk about her filming in Vancouver for the two films, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. Colbert asks Dakota what she does to unwind after being on the film set all day. She smartly replies that she goes on The Late Show to drink tequila with Colbert. Dakota has this charming ditzy nature in the way she talks about stuff.

At the end of the interview, Colbert invites her back and says that in the future the safe word they will use is “pumpkin patch.” It is anybody’s guess what that means as Colbert does not explain it.

The Life Of The Party

Dakota recently went with her boyfriend Chris Martin to the 60th birthday party thrown for Ellen DeGeneres. Virtually the who’s who of Hollywood and the music world were at the event, which was thoroughly enjoyed by those that attended.

People reported that Dakota and Chris were holding on to each other for the duration and obviously very much in love. Drew Barrymore was also there with her date. The two couples chatted with each other. Everyone was remarkably pleasant even though two of  Chris Martin's ex-partners, Jennifer Lawrence and Gwyneth Paltrow, were also in attendance.

Others who attended the party included Oprah Winfrey, Adele, The Weeknd, Kim Kardashian, Michael Keaton, John Legend and so many more. Live performances at the event were made by French Montana, P Diddy, Pharrell, Pink, and others.

Such is the life of an imaginary billionaire’s wife, to be able to hang out with all of these superstars.

Sources: standard.co.uk, popsugar.com, thesun.co.uk, theguardian.com, vogue.com