While attending the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, May 19, Dakota Johnson revealed that she will make her feature directorial debut with an upcoming movie written by her Cha Cha Real Smooth costar Vanessa Burghardt
Johnson played the mother of a teenager with autism in the 2022 movie; Burghardt’s script is “about a young woman with autism,” Johnson said
“I just don’t think I could allow anyone else to direct it,” she added, saying that she was “protective” of her onscreen daughter
Dakota Johnson is stepping behind the camera to help tell a special story.
While attending the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, the 35-year-old Materialists actress spoke about some of her production company TeaTime Pictures’ upcoming projects. Specifically, she revealed that she is planning to direct a movie written by Vanessa Burghardt, whom she previously worked with on the 2022 romantic comedy Cha Cha Real Smooth.
“The girl that plays my daughter [in Cha Cha Real Smooth], Vanessa Burghardt, she is an autistic actress and musician and brilliant person, and we have been working with her on developing a script,” Johnson said during Kering’s Women in Motion conversation with her producing partner Ro Donnelly, per Deadline and Variety.
She continued, saying, “She’s written a script, and it’s really special, and it’s about a young woman with autism.”
“I feel very protective of her and her story in her mind, she’s just an unbelievable woman. I just don’t think I could allow anyone else to direct it. So we’ll see,” she said. The movie will mark Johnson’s feature directorial debut.
Apple TV+/Courtesy Everett Collection
Vanessa Burghardt and Dakota Johnson in 2022’s Cha Cha Real Smooth
Johnson is attending Cannes to promote her new movie Splitsville, one of three upcoming projects she has in the works. It had its premiere at the festival on Monday, May 19.
In 2022’s Cha Cha Real Smooth, she and Burghardt played a mother-daughter duo. Written, directed by and starring Cooper Raiff, it followed Raiff and Johnson’s characters as they flirted with a romance after meeting at a bat mitzvah. Johnson’s TeaTime Pictures produced the movie.
“I want to direct and I need to grow the f—— balls to do it… Actually, no I don’t,” she said about the opportunity to work with Burghardt to make her film a reality. “I’m not going to grow balls and no one can make me.”
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During the conversation, Johnson explained what led to her creating TeaTime Pictures, saying, she wanted to “make my own movies because I want more from this industry.”
“I want more from my experience as an artist. I felt so thirsty for more conversation and more creativity and more collaboration,” she continued.
Marc Piasecki/FilmMagic
Dakota Johnson on May 19, 2025
“I found myself as an actor, a few times, showing up to the premiere of a movie to see it the first time and saying, ‘Woah. That is not what I thought we were making.’ That is such a weird thing to do,” she said.
Splitsville, in which Johnson costars with Adria Arjona and Nicholas Braun, does not yet have a release date. On June 13, Johnson’s romantic drama Materialists, which also stars Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, releases in theaters; she also stars in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Verity, which won’t release until 2026.
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