Cinema fans have seen a lot of Dakota Johnson down the years... not least in Fifty Shades of Grey.
The actress admit she likes to bare her soul in every part she plays.
And it’s that naked ambition which now sees her take a very different direction and a step further towards Hollywood greatness.
Dakota – daughter of acting veterans Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson – plays Anne Elliot, the lead role in a comical and updated adaptation of Jane Austen’s love story Persuasion.
Hollywood is calling 2022 “the summer of Dakota”, as she also stars in and produced coming of age comedy Cha Cha Real Smooth, co-starring Cooper Raiff.
The success is little surprise to those who have seen the rise of the 32-year-old star, who lives in California, with rock star boyfriend Chris Martin, 45.
Dakota pretty much grew up on film sets and knew she wanted to be an actress even as a child.
She says: “I was obsessed. I always wanted to be an actress. When my parents were on set, I wanted to be on set with them.
“I just loved movies. I was always watching movies. I still love watching movies and I’m so lucky I get to make movies. I didn’t know any different.
“I thought, this is just what my family does. My dad tried to make me go to college, but I refused. I wanted to act and that was that.”
Dakota was born in Texas, where her Miami Vice star dad Don, 72, was filming.
Her own acting career started at 10 with a role alongside mum Mel, 64, in Crazy in Alabama.
She had a small role in 2010 movie The Social Network – about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – and a raft of film and TV roles followed.
But it was as Anastasia Steele, opposite Jamie Dornan in the raunchy Fifty Shades of Grey series, that she joined Hollywood’s elite – thankfully, she says, without being typecast.
She says: “There’s not a lot like those kinds of movies, so there hasn’t been a lot of big naked franchises coming my way!
“If I had known at the time that’s what it was going to be like, I don’t think anyone would’ve done it. It would’ve been like, ‘Oh, this is psychotic.’
“But I don’t regret it. I learn so much on every project. I just hope I get to keep doing this job. I’m not going to steer away from anything.”
Persuasion, a witty and modern Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel, takes Dakota in a new direction.
There is a twinkle in the eye of her character Anne – and plenty of asides to the camera.
She explains: “It was wildly fun. I was drawn to the occasionally modernised language and themes, speaking directly to the audience, and the fact a strong-willed woman remains as much a topic of discussion these days as it was then.
“Doing a Jane Austen film is a dream and there are only a few of them, so I feel incredibly lucky.”
Feisty Dakota, who famously put chat host Ellen DeGeneres in her place during an interview, impressed her co-stars. Richard E. Grant, who plays her vain father Sir Walter Elliot, reveals: “Dakota’s very disciplined. Considering who her parents are, you project an idea of somebody coming from that amount of privilege. You think there might be a Paris Hilton element to her character.
“But there wasn’t. Instead, I think what that background has given her is a great assurance of who she is. She’s 32, but she has a no-sh*t-Sherlock approach.
“And having seen her on that infamous Ellen DeGeneres interview, you know that she takes no prisoners. You don’t mess with Dakota Johnson, and I think that’s incredibly sexy.”
He adds with a chuckle: “Dakota is instinctively flirtatious and she seduced all of us. If there’s a telegraph pole, she’d charm that into doing her bidding!”
Persuasion is the story of a woman who turns down a marriage proposal aged 19 and is still single in her mid-20s – considered perilously close to spinsterhood by some in pre-Victorian Britain.
Dakota says: “I really hope people see this and maybe feel like it’s okay to be figuring yourself out, whatever age you are. I think we’re figuring ourselves out for the whole of our lives.”
She admits she doesn’t worry how many people see her films, or how much money they make. A love of storytelling is her reward.
The actress goes on: “However well a movie does, doesn’t really do anything to me. I can’t do anything about that.
“I have learned that the experience of making the film is equally, if not more important, than how the film turns out.
“I just want to have the experience and I want to discover all of the stories within me. My focus is always drawn to stories and characters that possess a profound level of humanity.
“I want to work with great people. I want to work with kind people. I want to make movies that people can find themselves in, whether it’s in the story or in the character.
“There’s many, many women within me and I find them in weird places. I feel so lucky to have stories like this come into my life and to get to work with talented people. There have been a lot of people in my life who have exploded my world into colour. I just have to be really open-hearted and to hopefully tell stories that make you feel really good. It’s more relatable for people to watch things they really see themselves in.”
Away from the camera, Dakota lives in Malibu with Coldplay star Chris, her partner of five years.
He has two children from his marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow – which Dakota can relate to, as her parents both have children from other relationships.
She says: “It’s really nice that everybody actually really loves each other and has each other’s backs.” On the work front, Dakota talks of a deep bond with British star Olivia Colman, her co-star in The Lost Daughter. They may even get matching tattoos, she says.
While the world has been in lockdowns, Dakota was filming and launched her own company, TeaTime Pictures.
It was so busy that she jokes: “I need a blanket, because it’s been really hardcore. Somehow I just didn’t stop during Covid.”
Sounds like Dakota should take a little break.
But that may require an element of Persuasion.
Persuasion is streaming on Netflix from Friday, July 15.
