Dakota Johnson will step behind the camera for her directorial debut, A Tree Is Blue. According to Deadline, the actress will shape the film from a script written by her Cha Cha Real Smooth co-star Vanessa Burghardt, who will reportedly appear in the film alongside Charli XCX and Jessica Alba.
A Tree Is Blue is the first feature film Johnson will helm. She made her official debut as a director on the short film Loser Baby, which arrived last year. Johnson has also worked in executive producer and producer roles on The Disappearance of Shere Hite, Splitsville, and the upcoming Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity. Johnson will also star in Verity, her latest appearance since Celine Song’s Materialists.
“It’s hard to be on jobs where you don’t have creative input… It’s hard when creative decisions are made by committee and by people who don’t even really watch movies, or know anything about them,” Johnson said during a recent appearance on Hot Ones. “When something does well, studios want to keep that going, so they remake the same things. But humans don’t want that. They want fresh. They want to feel new things.”
Charli XCX is on the same page. Her upcoming slate of appearances includes Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, as well as The Moment, the Aidan Zamiri film based on her own original story. The Moment is set to arrive in 2026 and stars Charli, Jamie Demetriou, Kate Berlant, Shygirl, Isaac Powell, and Rish Shah. A.G. Cook will appear in the film in addition to handling the music.
Charli will also appear in Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex and Daniel Goldhaber’s take on Faces of Death.
“I am really enjoying my acting journey,” Charli told Variety earlier this year. “I feel very, very inspired at the moment in that field, I feel unbelievably creative, and I only ever want to do things that inspire me and make me feel energized.”
From Rolling Stone US
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