Dakota Johnson was feeling a little jittery while shooting “Loser Baby,” a short film that serves as her directorial debut and will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. But it wasn’t nerves that put her on edge.
“I discovered Celsius on day one of filming,” she said at Variety’s Toronto Film Festival studio, sponsored by J. Crew and SharkNinja. “I didn’t know that it was like Red Bull. I thought it was a natural drink.”
At first, she attributed the energy surge to being in the zone. “I was like, ‘I’m so creative. I’m so inspired. I’m awake all night long. I’m not sleeping, because I’m just thinking…,’ Johnson recalled. “And it’s because I was having like two Celsius a day. I thought it was vitamins. I didn’t realize I was basically overdosing on caffeine.”
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Talia Bernstein, who wrote and stars in “Loser Baby,” had a similar epiphany. “We’re like, “We’re not sleeping, because of the adrenaline,'” she said. “And it was, like, thousands of milligrams of caffeine coursing through our bodies.”
It was the film’s costume designer who finally clued them in to the extreme caffeine content. “She was like, ‘You’re not well. You’re basically having, like, four Red Bulls a day,'” Johnson said. “It was really upsetting. But now I know that in dire straits… there’s Celsius.”
Clocking in at 23 minutes, “Loser Baby” follows a queer woman whose circle of friends gets her wondering about the state of her own relationship. Since Johnson’s breakout role in “Fifty Shades of Grey,” she has cultivated an eclectic resume with Luca Guadagnino’s supernatural horror remake “Suspiria,” the feel-good film “Peanut Butter Falcon,” director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s psychological drama “The Lost Daughter” and most recently Sony’s comic book adaptation “Madame Web.” She didn’t necessarily feel called to step behind the camera.
“It wasn’t immediate that I was going to direct it. But then I got quite jealous of somebody else directing it because all my friends were going to be in it,” Johnson said. “So, it was mostly just me feeling left out and possessive. That’s what made me decide to do it.”
Bernstein, who met Johnson through mutual friends, wrote the script to “give an honest depiction of gay and queer relationships and what they can look like.” Johnson added, “It’s important to see different kinds of relationship dynamics and sexualities and know that it’s all OK. At any point in someone’s life, every single person is still trying to figure it out.”
As for the title of the film, “Loser Baby” was born out of an inside joke.
“This came about because Blake Lee, who appears in the film one day on a group text called Talia a loser baby because she was being a loser baby,” Johnson said.
Bernstein cops to whatever behavior inspired the moniker but was more focused on its creative potential. “I was being a little loser baby, but we were like, ‘Hold on the diss. I think that’s a great title.'”
Throughout her career, Johnson has become the poster child for how to execute thorny press tours with a certain kind of deadpan grace. Yet she says she doesn’t have a process to navigate the gauntlet of interviews and talk show appearances that are part and parcel of promoting a movie.
“I have no answers. I end up in situations and they happen to me. I’m the victim,” she cracked. “No, I don’t know. I feel so lucky to be able to do press tours and travel and go to all these amazing places and meet amazing people. I’m just having a nice time.”
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