Forget the Glasgow “Willy Wonka” experience and Ryan Gosling at awards season – the viral moment of 2024 that’s closest to our hearts is undoubtedly Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web press tour.
While promoting her new film, Dakota has been totally honest and shot from the hip in her own inimitable style throughout – leading to plenty of attention-grabbing moments... including from us:
And during a new interview with Bustle, the former Fifty Shades Of Grey star was every bit as candid when it came to the negative reception her latest film has received.
“It’s hard for me to fake it. It’s hard for me sometimes to go along with the silliness of doing a press tour,” Dakota began, noting she “can’t take any of it seriously at all”.
Asked whether she was “bothered” by some of the “nasty reviews” of Madame Web, she responded: “Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has.”
Dakota continued: “It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made — and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out — decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms
“My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.
“But it was definitely an experience for me to make that movie. I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now.
“But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’. But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.”
Dakota previously told Entertainment Weekly of her experience making Madame Web: “I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions going off, and someone’s going, ‘Explosion!’ and you act like there’s an explosion. That to me was absolutely psychotic. I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be good at all! I hope that I did an okay job!’
“But I trusted [director S.J. Clarkson]. She works so hard, and she has not taken her eyes off this movie since we started.”
Madame Web is still in select cinemas now.