Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson lost a film role before she ever recited a single line of dialogue.
Johnson, 36, the daughter of actors Don Johnson, 76, and Melanie Griffith, 68, revealed that she once failed a callback audition because of her “cocky” and “pompous” behavior.
“I had an audition once, and it was a callback, and I went into the room, and I shook everyone’s hand and introduced myself. Then I did the scene, and I left,” Johnson said on Hits Radio last week while promoting the U.K. release of her film, Splitsville.
Though the action seemed benign enough to Johnson, the film’s casting directors rebuked her introduction.
“The feedback I got was that because I had gone and introduced myself and shook everyone’s hand is that I was pompous. That I was schmoozing, and I was full of myself,” Johnson recalled.
Having parents as famous as Johnson’s apparently gave the casting directors preconceived notions about the Materialists actress.
“I was like, ‘What?’ I didn’t get the job because they said that I was being cocky, but I just had manners,” she said. “It was pretty crazy.”
Johnson’s manners were earned through a lifetime steeped in Hollywood filmmaking, including a childhood swarmed by paparazzi, a roster of longtime A-list friends (including fellow nepo baby Kate Hudson), and a lineage of acclaimed acting.
Despite its many advantages, Johnson—whose grandmother is The Birds star Tippi Hedren—has expressed her annoyance with her nepo baby identity in recent years.
“When that first started, I found it to be incredibly annoying and boring,” Johnson said on Today in 2024. “If you’re a journalist, write about something else. That’s lame.”
The familial ties have undoubtedly helped Johnson, whose first acting role was alongside her mother in 1999’s Crazy in Alabama, which was also directed by her A-list stepfather, Antonio Banderas.
Though she did not state directly which film her failed audition was for, Johnson now likely wishes it had been for her 2024 Marvel box office bomb, Madame Web. The Daily Beast’s Nick Schrager described the film as “a torturous saga that haplessly spins about in circles.”
Johnson, who has acknowledged the film’s disastrous release, said that it also put her in a special club alongside Oscar winners and fellow nepo babies.
“Sandra Bullock sent me a voice note, being like, ‘I heard you are in the Razzie Club, and we should have brunch. We should have like a monthly brunch,’” Johnson said on Good Hang.
To help avoid any such future casting rejections, Johnson founded her own production company, TeaTime Pictures, in 2019, through which she produces and acts, including in her newest film, Splitsville.
Johnson was a joint producer and actor in her most recent film, Splitsville, for which she undoubtedly did not need to audition.
