Dakota Johnson’s Parents: Everything She’s Said About Her Famous Family

Get to know Dakota Johnson’s parents, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson

Melanie Griffith, Dakota Johnson, and Don Johnson attending the after party for the New York premiere of “How To Be Single” at the Bowery Hotel on February 3, 2016 in New York City.

Dakota Johnson has a Hollywood pedigree from both of her parents, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. Furthermore, the Madame Web star is the granddaughter of Tippi Hedren and the stepdaughter of Antonio Banderas.

Growing up with silver screen parents inspired Dakota to go into what she always just considered the family business — but Don says she didn’t need his help anyway.

“No, she doesn’t really call me for advice,” he said on Late Night With Seth Meyers in March 2021. “She calls me to say, ‘Gosh, I would see you, but I’ve got three pictures that I’m shooting at the same time.’ ”

While Dakota’s parents love talking up their daughter (as well as her longtime boyfriend, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin), now a household name in her own right, she speaks about them less frequently. Here’s everything Dakota has said about her famous parents.

Her family moved a lot when she was a child

Melanie Griffith with her kids
Dakota told Vanity Fair she didn’t attend a full year of school in one place until she was in fourth grade because she traveled almost constantly while they worked on sets around the world. Griffith described raising Dakota as a “privileged gypsy.”

“My life is incredibly lucky and privileged, and the life I led growing up was remarkable — the places I went and how we lived and what we were able to experience,” Dakota said. “But we also struggled with internal family dynamics and situations and events that are so traumatic.”

She attended high school in one place for all four years while living with Griffith and Banderas in Los Angeles.

Her dad cut her off financially when she graduated from high school

Don Johnson and Dakota Johnson attend The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Hollywood Reporter party at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival
Don explained on Late Night With Seth Meyers in March 2021 how and why he cut off Dakota financially when she finished high school.

“Toward the end of high school, I went to [Dakota] and I said, ‘So, do you want to go visit some colleges?’ Or something like that,” he recalled. “And she was like, ‘Oh, no. I’m not going to college.’ ” He said that she responded, “‘Don’t you worry about it.’ ”

Three weeks later, Dakota was cast in The Social Network. Don said proudly, “And the rest is, shall we say, cinema history.”

Her parents discouraged her from becoming an actor

Melanie Griffith and Dakota Johnson during Teen Vogue “Young Hollywood” Party
Dakota knew from a young age that she wanted to be a star. However, her parents “discouraged” her from acting. “See how well that turned out? But I understood,” she told W Magazine. “They wanted me to have as much of a childhood as I could.”

Griffith told Vanity Fair she was “worried” about Dakota working in Hollywood, but that she was “never worried about whether or not she had the talent and the magic.”

“I knew how tough it was to navigate all of the aspects of filmmaking, and I hope she learned some good tips from me! I think she did,” Griffith said. “But it’s Dakota’s sense of self and her awareness of life, love and hard work that has gotten her through scary times.”

She was scared of how Alfred Hitchcock allegedly treated her mother and grandmother

Dakota Johnson, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and Stella Banderas attend the 22nd Annual ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards
Dakota alleged that Alfred Hitchcock was a “tyrant” to her grandmother Hedren and ruined her career after Hedren rejected his advances — and he allegedly extended his torment to Griffith. When Griffith was a child, Dakota claims, Hitchcock sent her a doll of Hedren inside of a casket.

“It’s alarming and dark and really, really sad for that little girl,” Dakota told Vanity Fair. “Really scary.”

Dakota shared that she, Hedren and Griffith watched HBO’s The Girl together. In it, Sienna Miller played Hedren — and when Dakota looked at her grandmother during the viewing, she saw “a woman who’s just been reminded of everything she went through, and it was heartbreaking.”

She later told Vogue U.K. that aside from Hitchcock’s threats to Hedren’s career, she believes ageism plays a role in why Hedren and Griffith aren’t in more movies to date.

They’ve never seen Fifty Shades of Grey — but she’s seen their sex scenes

Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson during 61st Annual Academy Award
As they alluded to on Saturday Night Live, Griffith and Don haven’t seen Fifty Shades of Grey or its sequels.

“I would never see that,” Don told PEOPLE. “I wouldn’t see that even if she wasn’t in it. It’s not my kind of thing. As a father there are certain images that you don’t need in your head.”

Griffith had a viral moment with Dakota on the red carpet at the 2015 Oscars when she said she wouldn’t watch the film because she thought “it would be strange.”

For her part, Dakota has seen her parents filming love scenes since she was a child. “I was around for a lot of it, and I would watch them [on set],” she told PorterEdit in January 2016, per Yahoo! News. “There were also things I could see that I didn’t want to, like watch my parents have sex with other people … I lost my mind!”

Griffith and Don have each supported Dakota at other premieres for less raunchy movies, including How to Be Single.

Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith appeared in her Saturday Night Live monologue in 2015

Dakota Johnson and Don Johnson attend the 2014 LACMA Art + Film Gala
Dakota hosted SNL in 2015 while promoting Fifty Shades of Grey, and her famous parents made cameos during her opening monologue.

“It’s actually really incredible that I’m standing on this stage right now, because in December of 1988, my mother stood in this exact spot and hosted SNL,” she said. “Right after the show, my father got down on one knee and he proposed to her for the second time. And exactly nine months later, I was born … I must have been conceived that night after the show — or maybe even during the show.”

The camera panned to Griffith and Don in the crowd, pretending to hide their faces. Dakota asked if they were embarrassed about the story, to which Don replied, “No, we were just afraid you were going to be naked.”

When she returned to host the show in January 2024, Griffith and Banderas joined her at the SNL afterparty to show their support. Ahead of Dakota’s latest turn at hosting the show, Griffith reshared one of her promo videos on Instagram, calling her daughter a “comedienne extraordinaire.”

She adores her stepfather

Antonio Banderas, winner of the Hollywood Actor Award, and Dakota Johnson pose in the press room during the 23rd Annual Hollywood Film Awards
Antonio Banderas, winner of the Hollywood Actor Award, and Dakota
Banderas split from Griffith in 2015 after 20 years of marriage, but Dakota remains close to the Puss in Boots star. While presenting him with the Hollywood Actor Award at the Hollywood Film Awards in November 2019, Dakota reflected on the ways Banderas, who she called an “unbelievably bright light,” changed her life when he married Griffith.

“My stepfather Antonio Banderas burst into our lives. He was so vibrant and so fun and so funny, and his English was abstract,” she said onstage. “We found it absolutely amazing. He loved my mother and my siblings and I so fiercely, and so big and so loud, that it would change all of our lives forever. Antonio taught me about true passion and discipline.”

Banderas said in a December 2022 interview with E! News that Dakota called him “Paponio,” a combination of “Papi” and “Antonio,” growing up. He added of her honoring him onstage, “She gave it to me and she gave one of the most beautiful speeches that anybody has given me. So I was very thankful to know that she thought that about Papi.”

She called out her mom for posting childhood photos on social media

Melanie Griffith with her kids
Dakota doesn’t have social media, but Griffith posts photos of her often, which Dakota told James Corden on The Late Late Show in January 2022 peeved her.

“I don’t like it, but I don’t go on social media, so I don’t find out about it until it’s really like, baked into the Internet,” she said. “And somebody will send it to me like, ‘You were so ugly!’ Or, ‘You were so cute when you had braces and a slicked back ponytail!’ ”

Dakota said she becomes “like a 12-year-old” and tells Griffith, “‘Mom! You can’t do that! We’ve had this conversation so many times!’ She doesn’t care.”