Dakota Johnson Has a Love-Hate Relationship With Acting and Producing

Dakota Johnson revealed she has a “love-hate relationship” with aspects of her job as an actress, and now as a producer, due to the “shady” elements in the entertainment industry, as well as the “exhausting” internal battles she has to endure as a performer trying “fight with myself to get to an emotional place.”

Taking part in the “In Conversation With” talk series at Saudi Arabia‘s Red Sea International Film Festival on Friday, a candid Johnson opened up about her career, reflecting on particular projects she was most proud of and providing insights on her push to become a producer through her production company TeaTime Pictures.

Johnson spoke at length about her difficulties with the darker side of Hollywood, something she has had to deal with more and more since she moved into producing and financing her projects. “Financiers are really shady sometimes. It is heartbreaking. As a producer, it can be very heartbreaking. As an actress, it can be heartbreaking,” she said, before adding, “But then both [producing and acting] are so incredibly fulfilling, and I feel very grateful that I’m able to do both.”

She added that she found producing as more of a challenge than acting because “there’s something about acting where I feel I’m in a bubble, and [with] producing you see behind the curtain, and it’s really ugly.” Adding that she both doesn’t like that, but also loves it at the same time.

Asked why she was moving into producing, Johnson said that from “watching my parents work and watching how they would engage with filmmakers and producers and collaborators, I always wanted to be a larger part of the project.” She added that as her career developed she “just wanted to make my own projects and explore parts of myself and my artistry that I think other people weren’t seeing.”

The Materialists star runs TeaTime with her producing partner and best friend Ro Donnelly, and the company has been behind the indie features Splitsville (2025), Daddio (2023), Am I OK? (2022) and Sundance winner Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022), as well as the documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023). Johnson said the company is focusing “mostly female-driven, human experience projects.” “I want to make movies about women and people that are going through some sort of evolution internally or externally,” she said. TeaTime is also producing Johnson’s feature directorial debut, A Tree Is Blue, which stars fellow Red Sea attendee, and budding producer, Jessica Alba.

Johnson, who is the daughter of actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, and the granddaughter of screen legend Tippi Hedren, said she “always wanted to be an actress,” and “always wanted to do what I saw my mom doing,” but the experience has not always been smooth, and confessed that she’s taken on projects in the past that weren’t “right for me.”

“I’m learning more now how to choose what’s right for me,” she said. “I think I’ve definitely been persuaded to do some things in the past that I realized, in retrospect, weren’t right for me. But that’s also part of the experience, and I’m lucky to have a job.”

Reflecting on her career, Johnson said that working on Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s 2019 dramedy The Peanut Butter Falcon was one of the “greatest experiences” of her career. “We were shooting in Savannah, Georgia and, it was just me and [Zack Gottsagen] who plays Zak, Shia LaBeouf, and we were like together every day, all day. We had all of our meals together. We were like a little family.”

Johnson said she really connected with her co-star Gottsagen, and that “Zack brought this energy that was so pure.” She continued, “He just is such a performer and such a talented actor. I just feel like [working with him] was a total gift to my life. I don’t know how to explain what that experience was, but I think it translates when people see the movie because you can feel the love behind it.”

Johnson also spoke about the two films she made with Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, A Bigger Splash (2015) and Suspiria (2018). Johnson said working with Guadagnino was “the most deeply seen I’ve felt by a director” and that she would work with him “forever.”

Speaking directly to her experience of working on A Bigger Splash as a 24-year-old actress, Johnson said she got the call about being cast in the film while being on a tour bus with an unnamed rock band, and after flying to Italy, she confessed that she felt she couldn’t go through with it. “I was in the back of a bus in like a field somewhere and I got a call that Luca wanted me to be in this movie, and I needed to get on a plane right away, and I was like I don’t even know where I am. I was just like young and crazy. And then, I went and I met him, and I felt like, ‘OK, I can do this.’ So I went to New York and like packed up my stuff and went to [Italy]. And I got there and I was, ‘I cannot do this. I’m not prepared.’”

Johnson said that on A Bigger Splash, she was daunted by the prospect of being surrounded by actors of the calibre of Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes, but it was Swinton herself who calmed her down. “Tilda actually sat down with me and was like, ‘You’re here because you’re meant to be here, and you can do this.’”

She added that working on Guadagnino’s Suspiria was a “tough one.” She explained, “I mean it took so much prep time to learn the choreography and I did pretty much all of my own dancing. There were like a few things that I couldn’t do because I’m not a professional dancer, but I did mostly all of it, and that took a lot of dedication.”

On working with Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Lost Daughter (2021), Johnson described her as a “force” and that “she’s so intelligent and her emotional intelligence is like just coming through her pheromones.” The actress described the director as inspiring and said that Gyllenhaal made her “explore so many different corners of myself.”

“Maggie’s way of directing was very quiet, she would just come and kind of whisper things [to me], and I was like, ‘I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, but I’ll try.’ (Laughs),” Johnson said.

The talk ended with Johnson’s impressions of the nascent Saudi film scene and RSIFF’s drive to push female filmmakers from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. “I’m extremely inspired by my experience so far… I’ve met some of the most incredible women. I mean, [Jomana R. Alrashid, chairwoman of the Red Sea Film Foundation], what a woman! I’m kind of at a loss for words. But I guess the thing that I feel about this festival is, I just feel inspired.” Johnson added, “You know, in the States, it feels really, grim, and even in the less than 24 hours that I’ve been here, I have a renewed faith in cinema.”

The Red Sea Film Festival continues through to Dec. 13.