Dakota Johnson just keeps adding to her resume. While the actress may be best known for her work in films like the titillating 50 Shades series as well as her status as bona fide Hollywood royalty (she's the daughter of Melanie Griffith and granddaughter of Tippi Hedren), there's one recent item on her CV that might come as a surprise: tattoo artist.
In our December cover story, Johnson reveals that while on the festival circuit for her latest film, the Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed The Lost Daughter, she embraced her inner artist and gave Olivia Colman, who co-stars in the film, her first tattoo.
“Maybe it was me being completely seduced by this gorgeous person and wanting her to think I was cool,” Colman says of the stick and poke style, which Johnson gave her at their hotel after a New York Film Festival screening in October. “Or maybe it was my midlife crisis.”
Johnson, who herself has the word “tender” tattooed on her forearm, has a different take on the situation, suggesting that it might be post-vaccine exuberance that inspired a little walk on the wild side. “The thing is," she tells T&C, "people are not behaving normally. If you go to a party, you fucking rage.”
The ink appears to have been just one more moment of connection between the two actresses, who shot the film, based on an Elena Ferrante novel, on a small Greek island in the midst of the pandemic and quickly bonded over a shared love of interior design. Johnson, who was furnishing her Colorado home at the time, teamed up with Colman to peruse online shopping sites to find the perfect picks for her new abode. "We just had such fun,” Colman says. “It’s often the case that if a film is about stuff that’s quite hard, you end up laughing a lot.”
Read the full story in Town & Country's December/January issue.
Lauren Hubbard is a freelance writer and Town & Country contributor who covers beauty, shopping, entertainment, travel, home decor, wine, and cocktails.
