Dakota Johnson Appears at Deadline's Contenders Event, Talks About Trepidation with 'The Lost Daughter' Role

Dakota Johnson is all smiles while heading into Deadline’s Contenders Event on Saturday morning (December 4) in New York City.

The 32-year-old actress was at the event to promote her Netflix movie The Lost Daughter with writer and director Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-star Peter Sarsgaard.

During the panel, Dakota opened up about her initial trepidation with the role and how she was able to ease those fears.

Click inside to find out what she said…

“The initial feeling was, ‘Oh, I’m a little bit scared to play this young woman who’s having a really difficult time as a mother,’ because that is typically a very unlikable person,” Dakota said. “But it’s so normal and it’s so honest, and it was some someone that I recognized more than, you know, a young mother who’s who gets everything perfect and is feeling great about it and super happy and all the time doesn’t waver from that.”

Dakota also had some praise for Maggie.

“Having Maggie there, who knows what it feels like to be an actor acting, made me feel so safe and so seen and genuinely loved,” she said. “And that made me feel like I could do really extreme things and still be held. And even in the edit, be held, and that is something like as an actor you end up seeing the movie and you’re like, ‘That’s not what I did.’”

She added, “It was like she offered me her hand and said, ‘Come with me. Let’s go on this journey of, like, truth.’ And that can be scary but also liberating, and that’s the point. And I was like ‘Yes!’”

While making the movie, Dakota gave one of her co-stars their very first tattoo!