Here's Why Dakota Johnson Hated Her Acting Role On The Office
Dakota Johnson survived Christian Grey's red room of pain in the "Fifty Shades of Grey" movies, but enduring being handcuffed and flogged had nothing on pretending to review expense reports on "The Office" set.
Maybe you remember Dakota's role in the 2013 finale of "The Office," which also featured cameos by Rachael Harris, Ed Begley Jr., and Joan Cusack. At the time, Dakota was probably most recognizable for being the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, wearing Stanford underwear in her bedroom scene with Justin Timberlake in "The Social Network," and starring in a single season of the Fox sitcom "Ben and Kate." While she wasn't the biggest star "The Office" could have snagged for its sendoff, she still seems a bit under-utilized. She plays an accountant named Dakota, who replaces Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner). Dakota only appears in a handful of brief scenes, including one where she learns that Kevin got fired for using a "magic number" he called "Keleven" to mask his accounting errors.
Dakota has since made a name for herself not just by getting cast in the "Fifty Shades" films and "Madame Web" but by creating viral moments during interviews, such as when she upset people by admitting to lying about limes or when she argued with Ellen DeGeneres about a birthday party invitation. When she appeared on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," Dakota became the talk of the internet again by saying that her experience filming a beloved television series was the absolute worst.
Dakota Johnson said The Office cast ignored her
Dakota Johnson took her workplace gossip far beyond the watercooler on "Late Night with Seth Meyers." She revealed that she was a big fan of "The Office" but didn't realize exactly what she was signing up for when she jumped at the chance to appear in the show's finale. She expected her scenes to take less than a day to shoot but recalled, "I was there for two weeks, and I'm barely in the f**king show."
This gave Johnson plenty of time to observe the interactions of the show's stars, and what she saw made her experience more uncomfortable. "There were weird dynamics that had been going on for the last 10 years; some people didn't speak to each other," she revealed. On top of this, she said that no cast members cared to converse with her. In a previous interview with Vanity Fair, she described the vibe thusly: "I felt like I was crashing someone's birthday party when they actually didn't mean to invite me."
Despite saying to Meyers, "That was honestly the worst time of my life," Johnson told Vanity Fair that one highlight of the experience was meeting the man whose character created a job opening for hers, Rainn Wilson. "And now I always run into him on planes," she added. Wilson admitted on the "Club Random" podcast that he found his role on "The Office" unfulfilling, so it seems they had something to commiserate over during their flights.
Critics thought Dakota Johnson came off as entitled
Dakota Johnson got slammed on social media for complaining about a gig other actors would cherish forever. "If I was in one of the most iconic shows of all time so early in my career, I wouldn't complain," read one tweet about her "Office" slander. From the sounds of it, Johnson was required to do little to get paid for two weeks of work, and her biggest issue was that the atmosphere was a bit off-putting. "She's not beating the entitled nepo baby allegations," another person wrote.
After her comments caused a minor scandal on the interwebs, the "Madame Web" star was asked by "Extra" how she felt about the backlash. Johnson revealed that she was oblivious to it, and she admitted that her declaration that she'd never experienced anything worse than filming "The Office" was hyperbolic. "I think I could have said it better," she said.
Johnson again called "The Office" cast out for ignoring her, saying, "They didn't really care that there was a new person on set." Interestingly, it's not the first time she's accused workmates of acting like she doesn't exist. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she said that Jesse Eisenberg didn't speak to her while they were eating lunch together on the set of "The Social Network." When their co-star Andrew Garfield tried to excuse his behavior by saying, "He was probably overwhelmed by..." Johnson interrupted him to offer, "...my beauty."