If you’d like to mentally escape the coronavirus headlines for ten minutes, we cannot speak more highly of Architectural Digest’s new video tour of Dakota Johnson’s sunny L.A. home. Trust us, it’s way better than Contagion. As you may recall from the 50 Shades movies, Johnson has an extremely soothing voice. It never seems to rise above a deep whisper, and it’s impossible to imagine her ever yelling or being stressed. Everything she says just kind of glides off the tongue, as silky smooth as the bangs on her forehead. As soon as she opens the door, you feel immediately at home. Welcome, she says. Johnson is a first-time home owner, and she bought this place from director Ryan Murphy. She was attracted to its beautiful chill-ness, which seems to match her personality. She has a lemon tree and an orange tree in her backyard, plus a heated pool that reflects light onto her ceiling at certain times of day. How nice, you think. “I love wood, and I love light, and windows, and greens,†she says. Which, same! Close your eyes. You are now Dakota Johnson.
At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a famous person’s home. It’s not too flashy, or unnecessarily enormous. Johnson is very normal: She has a record collection that she recently alphabetized and a dog named Zeppelin. She doesn’t really get any work done from her home office, she admits. She also has a collection of useless books, like Sex and the Constitution, and mushroom sculptures made of wax just because. “Oh Jesus, what a weird girl,†she says about herself with a laugh. So relatable! But then she’ll do something like describe her vintage couch as “crushed mohair,†and you’re reminded that she is, in fact, a rich person. She also casually recalls her A-list lineage, pointing to a Polaroid on the wall of her godfather figure, Hunter S. Thompson, as well as a photograph of her grandmother “at her house in Shambhala with one of her tigers.â€
When Johnson moves outside (after refusing to show us her bedroom with a wink), reality comes more into focus. She points out what appears to be average table and chair set, but then she reveals that they’re made “from the wood of Winston Churchill’s yacht.†Oh, and they’re kind of useless, she says. You can’t really sit comfortably, but who cares. You’re Dakota Johnson!