Dakota Johnson explained why her time on The Office wasn’t the dream job she’d been hoping for.
Before the Fifty Shades of Grey movies launched her to global fame, Dakota — like a ton of other famous actors — had the opportunity to appear as a guest star on The Office.
Starring the likes of Steve Carell, John Krasinski, and Rainn Wilson, the hit NBC show premiered in 2005 and aired for 14 seasons — although it wasn’t until the very last episode that Dakota was asked to make her brief cameo.
Despite being a huge fan of the show at the time, Dakota candidly revealed during a recent appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers that her stint at Dunder Mifflin was pretty miserable.
“That was honestly the worst time of my life,” she told the host before explaining how the guest role came about.
“I loved that show so much,” she said. “They were like, ‘Do you want to be in the series finale?’”
Dakota recalled that she’d excitedly accepted the offer thinking she’d “show up for like half a day” and have a fun time. However, it wound up being a lot more work than she anticipated.
“I was there for two weeks,” she said, “and I’m barely in the fucking show.”
Aside from her limited screentime, Dakota also remembered that the vibes on the set were very awkward too, revealing that some of the cast members weren’t even speaking to each other by this point in the show’s run.
“There were weird dynamics that had been going on for the last 10 years. Some people didn’t speak to each other,” she recalled, without naming any names.
“And I’m coming in like, ‘So excited to be here!’ And no one wanted to talk to me. No one gave a fuck,” she added. “I was like in the background of all of these scenes, faxing things.”
In an attempt to make her feel better, Seth — who also appeared briefly in the final episode of The Office — jumped in to praise her faxing skills, describing it as “some of the most believable faxing I’ve ever seen.”
Dakota’s recent admission about The Office comes as just another candid confession on the press tour for her new movie, Madame Webb, which hits theaters Feb. 14.
In addition to admitting that she didn’t know whether the film would “be good at all” while she was shooting it, Dakota recently weighed in on the never-ending debate about “nepo babies” in Hollywood.
“When that first started, I found it to be incredibly annoying and boring,” said the actor, whose parents are Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. “If you’re a journalist, then write about something else. That’s just lame.”
In another interview with L'Officiel, she also looked back on her viral interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2019, where she exposed the host for seemingly lying about not getting an invite to her 30th birthday party by saying on air, “That's not the truth, Ellen.”
Of the infamous exchange, she said, “It will haunt me.”
