Dakota Johnson Speaks Frankly About ‘Shady’ Hollywood, The Price of Acting

Dakota Johnson offers an unusually candid look at her life.

Johnson, as an actor and producer during a In Conversation with session at the Red Sea International Film Festival, she admitted to having a “love-hate relationship” with parts of her work.

Speaking directly to the audience, she described how the “shady” side of the entertainment industry and the personal toll of performance often weighed on her. Acting, he said, regularly requires me to “fight with myself to get to an emotional place.”

Johnson noted that the production has exposed her to more of the complexities of Hollywood than she’s ever seen on set. “Finenders are really shady sometimes. It’s heartbreaking,” he said.

“As a producer, it can be very heartbreaking. As an actor, it can be heartbreaking.” Even so, he explained that both roles remain “incredibly rewarding.”

Comparing the two crafts, she added: “There’s something about acting where I feel like I’m in a bubble and [with] the production you see behind the curtain, and it’s really ugly.” Still, she admitted that she “doesn’t like it, but she loves it at the same time.”

Her drive to produce came from years of watching her parents work closely with filmmakers.

“I’ve always wanted to be a bigger part of the work,” he said, adding that he wanted to create works that reflected “parts of myself and my art that I think other people didn’t see.”

Through TeaTime Pictures, which she runs with Ro Donnelly, Johnson champions “predominantly female-driven human experience programming.”

The company is also backing her directorial debut, A tree is blue.

Looking back, she singled out The Peanut Butter Falcon as one of her most meaningful experiences, recalling the close-knit environment on set and her deep connection with co-star Zack Gottsagen, whose “energy … was so pure.”