Dakota Johnson addresses ‘pressure’ of starring in ‘Verity’
Dakota Johnson stars as Lowen Ashleigh in the upcoming movie, ‘Verity’
Dakota Johnson has admitted she felt a level of “pressure” starring in the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Verity.
The psychological romantic thriller novel, released in 2018, has sold more than one million copies.
In the film, Johnson stars as Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer who moves into the family home of Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway, to ghostwrite for her.
However, after she uncovers what appears to be Verity’s chilling autobiographical notes, she wrestles with the disturbing and twisted confessions about Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), and struggles to separate fact from fiction.
Speaking at the film’s London premiere, Johnson told the Press Association she felt the weight of delivering an adaptation that fans of the book would be satisfied with.
“I always feel like any book adaptation is tough because every person reading a book, the experience is so insular,” she said.
Dakota continued, “So, it’s very much your own imagination that you are really glued to. But I think people will be excited.”
Praising Anne Hathaway and her acting skills, the Madame Webb star mentioned, “Annie does an incredible job in this movie.”
“There’s pressure, but also like, what are you going to do?” Dakota admitted.
Meanwhile, her co-star Josh echoed the sentiment. He said, “I absolutely feel the pressure. But at the same time, you want it to feel fresh.”
“I’ve done a couple of book adaptations, and if you are trying to stick to the letter of the book, it’s going to come across stale because you can only get so much of the book in there and so you can’t get all the nuances of the book,” Josh explained.
He further stated, “So, in order to do that, sometimes you have to take the essence of what’s meant to be in that particular scene and/or that series of scenes and kind of condense it down to something that makes more sense cinematically, and I think (director) Michael (Showalter) did an excellent job of kind of doing that with this book.”
“In that same way, I think the people who’ve read the book and loved the book will also be surprised that they’ll really enjoy the process,” Josh, who stars alongside Dakota Johnson, said of acting in Verity, a book adaptation to be released on October 2.
