Dakota Johnson is a young, up-and-coming actress with performing in her blood. She’s the daughter of actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. It’s no surprise that the young girl who grew up around acting eventually wanted to become part of the profession herself. What is a little surprising is how much the young woman saw while growing up. She spent several years watching her parents on set, and she saw pretty much everything.
In a cover story with Net-A-Porter, Dakota Johnson talks about what it was like growing up as the daughter of the guy from Miami Vice and the woman from Working Girl. Spending a lot of her time on sets watching her parents work led the girl to see a lot of things, that she really didn’t want to see. One can imagine how awkward watching your mother’s love scene can be. However, there was one thing that was even harder to watch than that.
I was around for a lot of it and I would watch them. But there were also things I could see that I didn’t want to, like watch my parents have sex with other people. And there was a scene where my mom got slapped in the face. I lost my mind! I couldn’t deal with that at all.
Knowing that your parents are acting is one thing, but we can imagine that seeing your mother get hit probably bypasses all logic circuits in the brain. The implication is that Dakota Johnson was very young during these days when she was hanging out on set, which simply would have made the scene all the more traumatizing. We can only imagine what a young girl would think when watching something like that. She can apparently laugh about it now, but it doesn’t seem all that funny.
Of course, as tough as it can be to watch your parents have sex on screen, we have to assume that the same thing works the other way as well. Dakota Johnson has been acting for several years but she came to the notice of most movie fans when she starred in the film adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey last year. This Valentine’s Day, she’ll be leading the ensemble cast of the sex comedy How to be Single before returning to make the 50 Shades sequels. Melanie Griffith has said that she can’t watch her daughter’s recent film. We're not too surprised about that. That just has to be weird.
All things considered it appears that Dakota Johnson has grown up to be a great actress, traumatic experiences notwithstanding. How to be Single hits theaters on February 12.
