Given the global attention - and the challenge of making a mainstream blockbuster out of a kinky novel - it is just as well that director Sam Taylor-Johnson has great reserves of courage. Having faced colon cancer when her daughter was an infant, and breast cancer three years later, she is not easily spooked. ‘Surviving cancer does give you a remarkable perspective on life,’ she’s said. 'You take no ****, take no prisoners, and just do what feels right.’ Left to right: Author, E. L. James, actress Dakota Johnson and director Sam Taylor-Johnson at the Berlinale International Film Festival in February 2015
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The popular film's director says she is 'not confrontational'
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No secret was made of the disagreements between author and director
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Sam saw the film as a ‘dark fairy tale’ and E.L. viewed it as an erotic epic
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They are now said to ‘despise’ each other
Rather extraordinarily, @placeholder attempted to exert control over every aspect of the movie, turning up on set every day to watch filming, rejecting rewrites and trying to keep in as much of the sex as possible.