Dakota Johnson Says She Was Branded ‘Cocky’ for Shaking Hands at an Audition, Didn’t Get the Part

Dakota Johnson is opening up about a bizarre audition experience she once had.

“I had an audition once, and it was a callback, and I went into the room and I shook everyone’s hand and introduced myself,” the actress said in an interview with the U.K.’s Hits Radio earlier this month. “I did the scene and then I left, and then the feedback I got was that because I had gone and introduced myself and shook everyone’s hand, I was, like, pompous, that I was schmoozing and I was full of myself.”

“I was like, ‘What?’ I didn’t get the job because they said that I was, like, being cocky, but I just had manners. It was pretty crazy,” the Splitsville star added.

Johnson, 36, is the daughter of Hollywood royalty Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson and the granddaughter of Tippi Hedren.

The Materialists star has been vocal in the past about her approach to taking on roles, including how she avoids toxic movie sets.

“If there’s not a healthy collaboration, if it’s not a good match, then it’s not a good match. We really don’t move forward if it’s not a good match,” she told Variety in July 2025. “I can’t waste time on toxic sets anymore, or in situations that are not fun or fulfilling or healthy. That’s one of the perks of [producing], because I get to put amazing people together and make something.”

The actress and producer said she doesn’t want to be around “anybody who’s mean or condescending or unkind.”

“I don’t want to face people who are not willing to collaborate, and then there are obvious things,” Johnson explained. “We all know what a toxic set is by now. We’re artists, so there’s room for expansive personalities, and we’re working with emotions.”

She added, “I love a healthy argument on a set, and I also believe that the most excellent idea wins. It’s not a fight. It’s not a race. It’s a collaboration.”

Johnson said at the time that she was “pretty vocal” when it comes to standing up for herself on a movie set.

“I think now, just being in the position of being a producer and developing my own films, I can choose all the people who are in it, and that makes a huge difference,” she shared.

Johnson will next be seen in Verity, an adaptation of It Ends With Us author Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name. The thriller, costarring Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett, is due for release in October.