Why Sam Taylor-Johnson Says It Took Years to Regain Confidence After Directing Fifty Shades

Sam Taylor-Johnson will see you now.

After all, the Fifty Shades of Grey director spent several years reevaluating her craft after experiencing a challenging time working on the 2015 film with author E.L. James, who wrote the erotic novel which the Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan-starring flick was based on.

"This was her book and she had a very particular vision of how she wanted to see this film, and I had a diametrically opposed vision," Taylor-Johnson shared in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published April 10. "Where we got to is where we got to. The success of it was great, but the experience of it was tough."

In fact, she took a step back from filmmaking following the shoot. "It took me about four years to regain my confidence and composure," the 57-year-old noted. "I'm going back to being an artist where I can make all my own decisions, answer to myself and present the world with something that I've created." 

The British filmmaker—who is married to her Nowhere Boy collaborator Aaron Taylor-Johnson—has been open about the challenges she faced while filming the adaptation. Ahead of the movie's premiere in 2015, Sam admitted that there were "so many voices" on set that it made it difficult to bring her personal vision to life.

"I want to protect my vision and that's the hardest thing," she told Red magazine. "Don't try and knock it out of me."

As for James? The writer has also acknowledged that she and Taylor-Johnson had creative differences.

"That was a challenging experience," she told U.K.'s The Times in 2019, sharing that she "would do a lot of things differently" with the franchise's first film. "I had a far more creative process on the second and third movie, working with someone who had vision and dynamism and embraced the material."