Dakota Johnson Says Streaming Execs Not Trusting Creatives to Make Brave Decisions Is “F—ing Bleak”

Dakota Johnson got candid about why she feels the entertainment industry is “really fucking bleak.”

In an interview with L’Officiel magazine, the Madame Web star said that with production company TeaTime Pictures, she and Ro Donnelly aim to tell intricate, detailed and nuanced stories with powerful female characters at the center. When asked if she felt she had to produce projects like that in order for to get them made, the actress did not hold back.

“I am discovering that it’s really fucking bleak in this industry,” she told the publication. “It is majorly disheartening. The people who run streaming platforms don’t trust creative people or artists to know what’s going to work, and that is just going to make us implode. It’s really heartbreaking.”

She explained that she’s found it hard to get things made that are unique and “very forward” in the story they’re trying to tell, like her recent film Daddio. While the film sold at the Telluride Film Festival to Sony Classics, she said it took a lot of fighting to get it made.

“People are just so afraid, and I’m like, why? What’s going to happen if you do something brave? It just feels like nobody knows what to do and everyone’s afraid,” she said. “That’s what it feels like. Everyone who makes decisions is afraid. They want to do the safe thing, and the safe thing is really boring.”

Elsewhere in the profile, Johnson also opened up about what drew her to her upcoming film, Madame Web. The film follows Cassandra Webb (Johnson), a paramedic in New York City who begins showing signs of clairvoyance and must protect three women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead, per the description.

“I don’t discriminate against movie genres when it comes to how I choose things or what I do,” she said of the film that takes place in Sony’s Spider-Man universe. “I heard that this was going to be made, and it was interesting to me that the main character’s superpower is her mind, and that she is a woman. That is something that I can really get behind. That’s very real to me, and it’s really powerful and sexy.”

THR Newsletters