Sam Taylor-Johnson ‘confused’ by EL James feud
Sam Taylor-Johnson is "confused" about why EL James doesn’t like her.
The 50-year-old director clashed with the ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ author when they worked on the big screen adaptation of the racy book together and Sam admitted she is still puzzled about why they clashed.
She told the Sunday Times Magazine: "I like everyone — and I get really confused when they don’t like me. I was so confused by EL James. I don’t understand when I can’t navigate a person, when there’s no synergy."
Sam decided not to return for the sequel to the movie and insisted she is completely done with the franchise.
She said: "I’m not going to ever watch them. I have literally zero interest. I can never say I regret it because that would just finish me off. [But] with the benefit of hindsight would I go through it again? Of course I wouldn’t. I’d be mad."
Sam’s decision to take on the project came as a surprise but she says she was drawn to the "dysfunctional fairy tale".
She explained: "It felt like a very dysfunctional fairy tale: a controlling prince and an unsuspecting young village girl. What I wanted to achieve is [for her] to usurp him against the odds."
And opening up about one of the movie’s most controversial scenes, in which Dakota Johnson’s Anastasia Steele is "punished" with six lashes from Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), Sam insisted that it was necessary for character development.
She said: "The idea was she would hold a mirror to his darkness and come out with the power.
"It was a struggle and there were lots of onset tête-à-têtes, with me trying to bat it into the [right] place."
