'Fifty Shades Darker' News: Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson Talks About Filming Intimate Scenes for the Sequel
"Fifty Shades Darker" is geared for its worldwide release next week and to kick things off, the cast and crew of the Universal Pictures film hit the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere earlier this week.
The sequel to 2015's hit "Fifty Shades of Grey," which is an adaptation of E.L. James' best-selling novel of the same title, is a direct continuation of Ana (Dakota Johnson) and Christian's (Jamie Dornan) love story picking up days after the scene that the preceding movie left off. However, with a two-year wait for the follow-up flick to hit the big screen, fans of the franchise are arguably thrilled and at the same time anxious to know whether the film does its source material justice.
Known for its bold depiction of sex, "Darker" is expected to bring the couple's intimate activities to the next level like its novel counterpart. But unlike in "Grey," where co-stars Johnson and Dornan are still pretty much strangers to each other, the two admit that this time, filming those racy scenes has become a little bit bearable.
"I was only cast five weeks before we started filming the first movie, and that's when I met Dakota [Johnson] for the first time," Doran told Entertainment Tonight when the outlet caught up with him during the film's premiere last Thursday. "[Now] it's been three years, [and] Dakota and I are very close. We've got a great sort of love and respect for each other. We're great friends and I think that makes it easier, you know? So it's definitely more comfortable," he explained.
Johnson backed up her on-screen leading man's sentiments saying that while filming those kinds of sensual scenes never really gets easy, it "was definitely not as petrifying as the first time."
Film director James Foley, who took over the baton from Sam Taylor-Johnson who directed "Grey," commended both his stars when asked about the same matter by The Hollywood Reporter. He specifically cited the two's fondness for each other, which helped them get through those grueling shooting moments.
"Jamie and Dakota had known each other from before and they had a really sweet relationship where they totally had each other's back, were a unit and had a lot of humor between the two of them, which was very important," he commented.
"Fifty Shades Darker" hits theaters Feb. 10.