“I really liked the idea of people in their 30s still figuring things out and still becoming whoever they’re becoming,” Dakota Johnson said of her latest film Am I OK? screening at Sundance. “I think we often see those in high school, [in the] early 20s. But I’m like, ‘How could anybody know who they are then at all?’ I feel like I’m just starting to drop into a solidness in myself and I’m 32.”
Speaking at Deadline’s Sundance Studio, Johnson discussed the Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne-directed feature, written by Lauren Pomerantz. The story follows Lucy (Johnson) as she figures out her sexuality, while simultaneously negotiating challenges in her relationship with her best friend Jane, played by Sonoya Mizuno.
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Pomerantz explained she based the script on her own life, coming out as gay later than the majority—something Allyne also related to.
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“I found my sexuality later than most do, or is considered typical, and similarly had that internal struggle just trying to understand myself as a gay person,” Allyne said.
Initially writing a story about friendship based on her real-life experience, Pomerantz reworked the script when she came out. “I realized that that was the story I wanted to tell,” she said. “And I really wanted to combine it with the friendship aspect of it all. So I started rewriting it as this friendship/ coming-of-age story.”
Mizuno credits Pomerantz’s writing for a sense of authenticity in the film’s central friendship.
“It felt and it read on the page so true, because it was so true. I don’t think I’d ever read a female friendship like that before that felt so real, and like my female friendships. So it was kind of there for us. And then it was putting myself into that character and that dynamic.”
For Notaro, working on Pomerantz’s story was a no-brainer, she said. “Lauren and I had worked together previously and really enjoyed working together and had a very similar comedic sensibility,” she said. “Stephanie and I really connected with it.”
Notaro, Allyne and Pomerantz also produce, with TeaTime Pictures, Johnson’s company co-founded with Ro Donnelly.
Watch the conversation in the video above.