‘Fifty Shades’ Star Dakota Johnson On Filming Sex Scenes: ‘It’s Pretty Tedious’

Dakota Johnson is currently in Vancouver filming two sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey back to back, which makes for a fairly hectic work schedule, but the star of the Fifty Shades films took time away to spend with Chrissie Hynde for an Interview magazine article.

The two women chatted like old friends, covering everything one might expect two close girlfriends to talk about and led to some revealing and surprising insights into Dakota Johnson’s psyche.

Fifty Shades Darker Star Dakota Johnson Isn’t Crazy About Those Wild BDSM Scenes

As Hynde and Dakota began the interview, the Fifty Shades actress mentioned to Chrissie that she was actually filming a sex scene the day of the interview, which intrigued The Pretenders singer. Hynde asked how she felt about filming such revealing sex scenes.

“Yeah. I’m doing one today. [laughs] It’s not… comfortable,” says Dakota. “It’s pretty tedious.”

Chrissie shares her first experience kissing a performer in one of her music videos, prize fighter turned actor Gary Stretch. Hynde says, even though Gary was an attractive guy, she felt rather violated by the incident and admits the experience bothered her for days. She describes the incident as “excruciating” and suggests full on sex, even simulated sex, must be that much worse for Johnson.

“Well, we’re not having actual sex,” reveals Ms. Johnson. “But I’ve been simulating sex for seven hours straight right now, and I’m over it.”

Dakota says her famous parents, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, are well aware of her Fifty Shades role and what that entails, but Ms. Johnson adds that she’s happy they aren’t interested in actually watching the films. On the topic of her parents, Dakota says she was never really affected by having been born to two famous Hollywood celebrities and adds that she stayed away from the limelight throughout most of her childhood and teen years.

Hynde and Johnson agree that in today’s society, the advent of the online community has allowed almost everyone to latch on to some claim to fame. Everyone is some celebrity’s friend, nephew, parent, whatever.

“Nothing is really precious anymore,” says Ms. Johnson. “Like, the mystery is gone.”

Dakota Johnson Reveals What Her Life Is Like Outside Of Hollywood

Things have moved fast for Dakota Johnson, and she says that even she can’t believe how quickly she achieved her success, so it’s not surprising that she sometimes feels like she’s still finding her way. She tells Hynde that she will probably never lose her love for making films, but Dakota also says that she doesn’t handle the accompanying fame as well as others.

“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,” says the Fifty Shades Darker actress. “Right now, I’m known for making movies. And I wonder if that’s it. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like it to me.”

As Chrissie and Dakota spoke, Ms. Johnson revealed a fear of the trends she sees in Hollywood to be more concerned with finding the next fresh face, instead of relying on talented actresses to build up a following and a body of work. Dakota says it’s unsettling to see so many actresses thrown by the wayside in favor of finding that new look and Dakota adds that, as a film watcher herself, she enjoys exploring the body of work of her favorite actresses.

“I feel like there’s such a weird pressure to find the new face. I don’t get it at all. I want to see women evolve,” says Dakota. “I want to see a body of work. I want to see all of it.”

Dakota also revealed that she doesn’t make it to Hollywood often, except for special events or for some film roles, which may require her to travel to California. Johnson makes her home in New York and currently divides her time between New York and Vancouver, where she has been filming the Fifty Shades sequels going on two months. Dakota expects to spend a total of six months on set in Vancouver.

Ms. Johnson admits she finds Vancouver tedious and rather dull, particularly because the city is experiencing its rainy season at the moment. Dakota says she goes stir crazy during her down time.

“And I found myself getting completely erratic with what I wanted to do with my free time—like, what books I was going to read or albums I wanted to listen to, what movies I wanted to watch,” says the Fifty Shades Darker star. “I couldn’t ever pick one. I couldn’t figure out what to do.”

Fifty Shades Darker, starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, is set to hit theaters on February 10, 2017.

[Image by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images]