It takes a specific type of actor to admit when something isn’t suited for them. Most creatives want to believe they can mold themselves into any work, but it seems like a performer like Dakota Johnson truly knows where she’s best suited.
After the negative response to Madame Web and Johnson’s hilarious press tour supporting the film, the actress looks inward and finds out where she fits in movies while speaking to Bustle. She holds nothing back as Johnson expresses feelings about creating a project with studio interference like Madame Web experienced.
She first dives into the process of making a film like this and believes audiences are more intelligent than studios realize:
“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.”
Then, the actress confirms she doesn’t feel like she fits into the world of these big-budget mainstream comic book movies like Madame Web:
“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?”
Madame Web has an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $90 million worldwide. Read our written review here, and watch our video review below…
“Meanwhile, in another universe…” In a switch from the typical genre, Madame Web tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures…if they can all survive a deadly present.
Directed by S.J. Clarkson (The Defenders), Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon, Celeste O’Connor as Mattie Franklin, and Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims.
