She is, perhaps, too jaded to enjoy the frisson of new fame, and too familiar with it from family life. People are naked when they fuck.”ĭespite all the on-screen exposure, in vivo Johnson has struggled with the idea of a public life. I don’t want to see someone wearing a bra and underwear in a sex scene. Maybe I have more of a European mind-set about these things. “Will I stop doing nude scenes when my boobs start sagging? I don’t know. So it becomes purely about the performance.” She sips her coffee and softens her voice, lest her cover get blown. There’s no jewelry to give you a clue about social status. There are no clothes to tell you a bit about the story. But I mean, what a gamble! What if he had turned out to be a total dick? There’s no makeup. There were no inhibitions, and it was very honest, very trusting. “Jamie and I worked so incredibly closely for so long. “Nudity is really interesting for an actor,” she says. And yet very likely most people here have seen her naked. Amid such overtness, Johnson’s cool-girl looks don’t register. We are now sitting at lunch at a restaurant in West Hollywood, in a room where a preponderance of the women sport lacquered lips and pronounced curves. “We hate each other and we’re having an affair, so everybody’s right. She has read that they are having an affair. “It’s a cool story, and I think it’s different, and different is what I’m about.” She has read that Dornan and she can’t stand each other. She has heard it said that she despises Fifty Shades. Is it a public accommodation, almost reflexive at this point, to the three years of prurient attention that have accompanied her star turn opposite Jamie Dornan in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, as well as its two sequels, Fifty Shades Darker-out this month-and the imminent Fifty Shades Freed? Or is that amused titillation-the taste for a sex joke, and really any joke-among the qualities that earned her the role of Anastasia Steele in the first place? It has now been exactly two years since Fifty Shades changed Johnson’s life, and although her bloodline is true-blue Hollywood-her father is Don Johnson, her stepfather is Antonio Banderas, her grandmother is Tippi Hedren-there is no gene for cakewalking alongside a $500 million cinematic juggernaut. There is always, with Johnson, an air of naughtiness mingled with an air of surprised pleasure at her own naughtiness. “Let’s do Roman shades in there,” she says, “because I think it’s kind of pervy to only be able to see people’s legs.”
Before we go, Johnson points up toward the guest room with its wall of south-facing windows.