‘Materialists’: Dakota Johnson wooed by Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal
A matchmaker (Dakota Johnson) finds herself in a love triangle with her ex (Chris Evans) and a wealthy new guy (Pedro Pascal) in “Materialists.”
Despite being born into a family of A-listers, Dakota Johnson‘s foray into Hollywood wasn’t as smooth as you might think.
The daughter of “Working Girl” actress Melanie Griffith and “Miami Vice” star Don Johnson, Johnson grew up on various film sets and was highly influenced by classic movies, especially the likes of “Mary Poppins” and “Home Alone.”
She “always wanted to be an actress and be a part of what the people around me were doing,” Johnson, 36, told Vogue Germany in an interview published Tuesday, Oct. 21, in German. Yet she “was never allowed to act in movies as a kid.”
With the exception of acting alongside Griffith and half-sister Stella Banderas in 1999’s “Crazy in Alabama,” which was directed by her stepfather Antonio Banderas, Johnson “wasn’t allowed to work properly until I graduated from high school,” she recalled.
Johnson has previously opened up about the humbling start to her acting career. Though she’d auditioned for a spot at The Juilliard School — the only college to which she’d applied — she wasn’t accepted, and as a result her father “cut me off.”
“So, I started auditioning. I think I was 19 when I did ‘The Social Network,’ and then little jobs and stuff after that,” she told “Materialists” costar Pedro Pascal in an Elle UK interview published in May. “For a couple of years, it was hard to make money. There were a few times when I’d go to the market and not have money in my bank account or not be able to pay rent, and I’d have to ask my parents for help.”
She continued, “I’m very grateful that I had parents that could help me and did help me. But it certainly was not fun.”
Her grandmother, “The Birds” actress Tippi Hedren, told Vogue in 2017 that “I didn’t push Melanie into films, and she didn’t push Dakota. I think neither of us is the type to push.”
Why Melanie Griffith’s fame was ‘really quite scary’ for Dakota Johnson
Johnson had an unconventional childhood, partially due to her parents’ jobs taking her around the world. But she also had to contend with their fame and their private lives becoming tabloid fodder.
“When I was little, there were times when it was really quite scary, and people would aggressively and physically try to get to my mom when we were just going to the supermarket or something,” she told Vogue Germany. “If you accept that as normal as a little kid, it can lead to a lot of complexes.”
“And then, of course, the fact that you’re in the public eye and the world knows about your private life in a way that’s very invasive, rude and painful,” she continued. “So, yes, there are downsides, but there are also incredible upsides — like with everything.”
Johnson previously told Vogue in 2017 that she’d started going to therapy at the age of 3. “The whole shebang,” she said. “All the help you can get.”
The “Madame Web” star “traveled with my parents and with a tutor until I was 10 years old,” she said in the Elle UK profile from May. “I went to a bunch of different schools all over and we lived in Spain for quite a while, because my mom and Antonio were married.”
She spent the last three years of high school at New Roads School in Santa Monica, California, where her classmates allegedly brought in press clippings about her famous parents. Johnson joined a “pseudo-theatre program” at the private college preparatory school, but she was later “kicked out of it because I abandoned my schoolwork and started failing classes.”
“I think people, especially the press, like to pick on children of famous people, and I think that’s … awful,” she told Elle in 2014. “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 … ‘Why? What did I do?'”