Welcome to the big leagues, Dakota Johnson.
The 25-year-old actress covers Vogue's February 2015, her first time doing so for the fashion bible. For Johnson, it's yet another reminder that her life will never be the same thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey. "I wanted to be involved because it's so different," she tells the magazine, "and it's an intense love story."
For her Fifty Shades of Grey audition, Johnson was given a monologue from the 1966 psychological drama Persona. "She blew us out of the water," director Sam Taylor-Johnson remembers. "She understood the nuance of that passage and how to play something delicately. Dakota has the ability to play so fragile and vulnerable, but with this underlying strength that makes you feel she is going to triumph."
"There are tough scenes in this movie, scenes where she had to be naked—and not just in the flesh. But she was utterly fearless and brave," Taylor-Johnson adds. According to the filmmaker, Johnson and co-star Jamie Dornan "have a very special connection. I trust her with everything. She has a very level head, and there was never really an anxious moment." Dornan calls his leading lady "very funny," explaining, "Humor on a film set goes a long way. But she also had the ability to be a very strong dramatic actress. She'd be telling a joke one minute and breaking your heart on-screen the next—so she was perfect."
After seeing a rough cut of the film (in theaters Feb. 13), Johnson marvels, "It looks beautiful. I've never seen anything like it. But it's confusing to the brain—I still can't look at it objectively or wrap my head around it. The parts of the movie that are difficult to watch were even more difficult—and emotionally taxing—to shoot."
Though her parents are famous actors, Johnson is still getting used to life in the limelight.
"I think about my dwindling anonymity, and that's really scary because a very large part of me would be perfectly happy living on a ranch in Colorado and having babies and chickens and horses—which I will do anyway," she vows. Though it can be intimidating, she says, "It's just the most insane thing to be a part of. I've never experienced anything like this; I don't think anyone has. It's terrifying—and it's exciting."
Taylor-Johnson is eager to see where the movie takes Johnson's career. "I think it's going to take her to a place where she has witnessed her parents go," she says. "Now she's going to experience it for herself."
Johnson isn't worried about landing her next role—at least not now, anyway. "[I'll] do a bit of press for Fifty, and then I'm just going to take the rest of the year off," she tells Vogue. "I want to hang out with my friends. I want to hang out with my family—well, I sometimes want to hang out with my family!"
(E! and Universal Pictures are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)