E.L. James knew who to ask for help when it came time to translate the steamier moments from her Fifty Shades of Grey book series for the screen.
In an interview with TODAY.com published Tuesday, the best-selling author said she enlisted her husband, Niall Leonard, to help her choreograph some of the sex scenes between Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) — in the backseat of a Mini Cooper!
“I said, ‘All right, I’ll sit on your lap,’ ” James, 60, recalled of what she told her husband, while they were “fully clothed” in the backseat of the car on a Saturday afternoon.
“People were walking by to the football ground at the end of the road. They were thinking, ‘What are these two doing?’ ” she added.
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Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades Darker (2017).
Dakota Johnson Says ’50 Shades’ Movies Became ‘Crazy’ Due to Author’s Demands: ‘It Was Always a Battle’
James’ notoriety for the erotic themes in her Fifty Shades series has inspired many a product over the years, included a branded sex toy that she owns.
And it created quite the hilarious (and perhaps awkward) situation for the mother of two.
“My son once asked to get the sex toys off the table because his chemistry teacher was coming over,” James told TODAY.com.
As for Leonard, he reads all of his wife’s writing first and, according to her, actually “writes far better than I do.”
“He’ll read a chapter once I’ve finished it and is very helpful in putting it all right,” James said. “He’s someone I can bounce ideas off of. I don’t always take his ideas, though.”
E.L. James and Dakota Johnson at the world premiere of Fifty Shades of Grey in 2015.
Britta Pedersen/picture alliance via Getty
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In an interview for Vanity Fair’s July 2022 issue, Johnson, 33, said it was a constant creative battle making the Fifty Shades of Grey movies, and that James exercised her creative control and interfered with the vision she and some other people behind the scenes had in mind.
“It just became something crazy. There were a lot of different disagreements. I haven’t been able to talk about this truthfully ever, because you want to promote a movie the right way, and I’m proud of what we made ultimately and everything turns out the way it’s supposed to, but it was tricky,” said Johnson.
“She had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen,” the actress said of the author, who was also a producer on the film franchise. “There were parts of the books that just wouldn’t work in a movie, like the inner monologue, which was at times incredibly cheesy. It wouldn’t work to say out loud. It was always a battle. Always.”
A rep for James did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment at the time but in 2019, she told The Arizona Republic that she had “such a miserable time making the Fifty Shades of Grey movie.”
