Dakota Johnson is on the press circuit promoting her upcoming Marvel/Sony pic, Madame Web, in which she plays the character Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures… if they can all survive a deadly present. She stars in the film alongside Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria), Celeste O’Connor (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), Isabela Merced (Transformers: The Last Knight), and Emma Roberts (American Horror Story), along with Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps (The Upshaws), and Adam Scott (Severance).
The movie was the first superhero flick in Johnson’s resume, and it was a new experience for her. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, she explained how much fun she had on set, doing a little stunt work, saying:
“I got to do a day of stunt driving work, and I’m really good at it, it seems! I mean, I can do some really wild things with a car. I drove an ambulance. I drove a taxicab. I drove everything in the movie — except for flying through the air and out of a building. But other than that, I’m like, ‘Watch out, Tom Cruise.’”
She went on to talk about the fact that she was skeptical about taking on the role at first, but she was ultimately drawn in by the character:
“I got sent this script, and I was like, ‘I don’t know about me being a superhero.’ I was sort of mystified by her powers. I felt like, ‘Oh, I really would love to see that superhero. I would love to see a young woman whose superpower is her mind.’”
She then talked about how wild it was to make a superhero movie, but she ultimately was able to fulfill her duties with the help of her director, S.J. Clarkson:
“I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions going off, and someone’s going, ‘Explosion!’ and you act like there’s an explosion. That to me was absolutely psychotic. I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be good at all! I hope that I did an okay job!’ But I trusted her. She works so hard, and she has not taken her eyes off this movie since we started.”
Madame Web is set to hit theaters on February 14th.
