Sundance Film Festival kicked off yesterday in Park City and Dakota Johnson was among the many first to take to the stage.
At the opening evening dinner on Thursday night, Johnson was enlisted to honor her buddy and collaborator, director Luca Guadagnino, with a world icon prize.
As the primary presenter of the evening, the Fifty Shades Of Grey star took a second to precise gratitude for the pageant and its attendees.
“I thought this was an intimate dinner,” she started jokingly. “I didn’t realize that there were going to be so many people back at Sundance — but thank God. It feels so good to be back in a room together celebrating independent cinema.”
Shining a lightweight on Guadagnino’s work, Dakota praised one of many director’s finest liked movies, Call Me By Your Name, which was launched in 2017.
Call Me By Your Name follows the short-lived coming-of-age romance between Elio and Oliver, performed respectively by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer. It was obtained with nice vital acclaim, taking dwelling the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2018, in addition to nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor for Chalamet.
Reflecting on its success, Johnson joked that Guadagnino tried to solid her within the a part of the peach — which, for those who haven’t seen the movie, is a reference to a racy scene through which Chalamet’s Elio performs a sexual act on the fruit, which is later found by Oliver.
“It was unfortunate. Luca had asked me to play the role of the peach but our schedules conflicted,” she stated to laughs from the viewers.
She added: “Thank god, though, because then I would’ve been another woman that Armie Hammer tried to eat.”
Soon after the phrases left her mouth, the viewers was shocked into combined reactions — some laughed, others groaned, whereas many sat in silence.
Dakota Johnson jokes that she wasn’t solid in #CallMeByYourName: “Luca had asked me to play the role of the peach, but our schedules conflicted. Thank God, because then I would have been another woman that Armie Hammer tried to eat.”
The DMs — which have been believed, however not confirmed, to have been despatched by the actor — element graphic sexual fantasies together with references to violence, rape, and cannibalism, and have been apparently despatched to quite a lot of girls. In one message, Hammer allegedly describes himself as “100% a cannibal.”
In March that yr, it was additionally introduced that the Los Angeles Police Department can be investigating allegations that Hammer “violently” raped and abused a lady in 2017.
Hammer has vehemently denied all of the claims and, because it at present stands, no formal expenses have been introduced in opposition to him.
Following up her first joke, Johnson continued on the theme of allegations in opposition to Hammer with a nod to Guadagnino’s latest movie, Bones and All, which additionally stars Chalamet and facilities round a love affair between two younger cannibals.
“It’s been five years since [Call Me By Your Name] premiered here and Luca hasn’t stopped taking us to exciting places. Who knew cannibalism was so popular?” she stated.
Despite making mild of the allegations, Johnson has beforehand confronted backlash for talking out in protection of Hammer, who she labored alongside on The Social Network in 2010, and Wounds in 2019.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in November 2021, Johnson stated she felt “sad for the loss of great artists” like Hammer, Johnny Depp, and Shia LaBeouf, every of whom she has collaborated with up to now and have since been confronted with abuse allegations.
“I never experienced that firsthand from any of those people,” she stated, referring to her former co-stars. “I do believe that people can change. I want to believe in the power of a human being to change and evolve and get help and help other people.”
She completed by saying that that she finds “cancel culture” to be “such a fucking downer.”
“Sometimes the old school needs to be moved out for the new school to come in,” she stated of the movie trade. “But, yeah, cancel culture is such a fucking downer. I hate that term.”