Picture it: Feb. 13, 2015. It was a simpler time, back when we could not even fathom the world of hurt lurking just around the corner. The world of hurts-so-good, brought to you by the Red Room of Pain, that is.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day that year, the eponymous first film in the hotly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy opened in theaters, the culmination of a relatively short but not drama-free journey from page to screen for the surprise best-seller by British author E.L. James.
Perfect for those still pining away for Twilight-caliber romance but ready to add nudity to the mix, the fractured-fairy tale relationship between Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) was ripe for the adapting, and three films were churned out between 2015 and 2018.
But nothing could compare to the excitement that awaited the original Fifty Shades of Grey film.
And since seven years ago feels like forever-ago, there are plenty of juicy details we had forgotten about the making of this film. Now, in honor of Dornan’s birthday May 1, sit perfectly still and read on.
1. Finding the Screenwriter
American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis tweeted in June 2012, “I’m putting myself out there to write the movie adaptation of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’…” And he meant it, publicly lobbying via Twitter and telling whomever would listen that he wanted to adapt E.L. James‘ book for the big screen.
“I read the book out of curiosity. If it had not been as big of a hit, I would not have picked it up,” Ellis later told Vanity Fair. “I realized, Oh, this isn’t well written. It isn’t a good book. But this is a really good story, and it would make a really good movie.”
Instead, Universal’s Focus Features went with Kelly Marcel, who had penned the screenplay for Saving Mr. Banks—about Walt Disney’s struggle to get Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers to let him make a movie about her magical nanny. The Wolverine scribe Mark Bomback was brought in to polish the Fifty Shades script in late October 2013.
“I had never been on a project with that much secrecy around it,” Bomback later told The Hollywood Reporter about the experience. “The set was on lockdown, and it was just really fascinating.”
2. Angelina Jolie as Anastasia Steele?
Not so fast. Back in 2012, rumors emerged that Angelina Jolie was involved in Fifty Shades of Grey, not as an actor but as a director.
However, per The Hollywood Reporter, reps for both Jolie and studio Focus Features denied the speculation.
3. Charlie Hunnam as Christian Grey?
Casting rumors ran rampant as to who would play Christian and Ana (Matt Bomer was flattered; Emma Watson was not; Taylor-Johnson wanted Robert Pattinson), but Charlie Hunnam really was planning to make the film his next big project after Sons of Anarchy ended.
“There are so many fans of that book and I know that on the surface, I’m probably not what everybody imagined,” the British actor told Entertainment Weekly in October 2013. “Because reading is so personal and people bring a character to life in their imagination, they feel ownership over that character.”
He added, “That’s daunting if I allowed myself to think about it too much. I’m taking it very seriously and intend to explore the nature of who this character is, what motivates him—and also dress up nice and look good in those suits.”
Days later, he exited the project, officially due to a scheduling conflict but reportedly due to creative differences with the film’s creative team, including Taylor-Johnson, as well as second thoughts about whether it was the right career move for him.
4. How Dakota Johnson Got the Part
Young actresses ranging from Shailene Woodley and Elizabeth Olsen to Alicia Vikander and Felicity Jones were said to be in the running, but once Dakota Johnson landed the role of Ana, she kept it.
“She’s just so Anastasia Steele. She’s the best partner a producer could have,” De Luca told E! News, calling Johnson “our rock.” He said that the actress was “helping us look through the candidates [to play Christian] to see which chemistry kind of captures our attention.”
5. Enter Jamie Dornan
About two weeks after Hunnam’s exit, Jamie Dornan officially signed on. A source told E! News that the Belfast-born actor, best known then for ABC’s Once Upon a Time, “had a really good read” at his audition, but as far as chemistry with his leading lady, “the studio isn’t worried about Dakota. They think she could handle whoever the guy is.”
“I’m sure he’ll do a great job,” Hunnam told TMZ in passing.
6. Production Starts
Originally scheduled to start in November, principal photography was pushed back a month as they got their casting ducks in a row.
Cameras finally started rolling on Dec. 2, 2013, with Vancouver, British Columbia, standing in for Seattle.
7. Release Date Changes
“The release date is preserved and we’re gonna kind of keep going,” De Luca also said that October, days before the film’s release date was changed from Aug. 1, 2014, to Feb. 13, 2015.
8. Laters Baby
Dornan’s wife, Amelia Warner, was about 8 months pregnant with their first child when he was cast as Christian, but she packed up and moved to Vancouver, where daughter Dulcie was born on Nov. 21, 2013.
“Then Jamie had a brand-new baby the first week of shooting,” Taylor-Johnson recalled to Vanity Fair.
9. About Those Sex Scenes
To make everything as comfortable as possible for Johnson and Dornan during the sex scenes, Taylor-Johnson tried to downsize the crew in the room as much as possible.
“I didn’t want [Dakota or Jamie] to have to come re-shoot those kinds of scenes,” the director told Vanity Fair.
“It was a closed set, and so we couldn’t be there for those very intimate scenes…but so much of the movie turns on those intimate scenes,” producer De Luca explained. “We’d be in our trailers, but [the actors] were miked, and we had cans—you know, headphones—but I actually got shy from listening. There was something about not being there and having the audio that made us feel like peeping listeners, and so we all put them down.”
James legendarily wanted as many scenes as possible to play out exactly as she’d written them, but Taylor-Johnson focused on “details, flesh and fingers and skin and eyes and looks.” She felt if they showed too much “the mystery would be gone. You see a lot, but you don’t have to see anything graphic.”
10. “Crazy in Love”
The first trailer was going to go viral anyway, but it didn’t hurt to have a slowed-down version of Beyoncé‘s “Crazy in Love” setting the mood.
“Obviously I know how ‘Crazy in Love’ goes, but I knew there was the possibility her vocals would be different,” violinist and recording artist Margot told TIME. “It’s almost more vulnerable and beautiful this way, because you do do crazy things when you fall in love. To hear the mood reversed and flipped makes it even more powerful.”
11. Ellie Goulding Has Entered the Chat
Ellie Goulding‘s “Love Me Like You Do” was made specifically for this soundtrack and was nominated for two Grammys and a Golden Globe—but the Oscar nomination went to The Weeknd‘s “Earned It” (which in turn lost to the latest Bond tune, Sam Smith‘s “Writing’s on the Wall,” from Spectre).
