I feel sorry for Sam Taylor Johnson. I know she’s not a victim of anything or anyone, but I still feel sorry for her. She had to deal with a mountain of crap from E.L. James and the studio, and I get the feeling that Fifty Shades of Grey isn’t really HER vision, her film, or anywhere close to the film she wanted to make. But she’s still shilling it and she’s being remarkably honest in her interviews. In fact, out of everyone involved in Fifty Shades, I think Sam’s interviews have been consistently the most interesting. Anyway, in the midst of Sam’s HuffPo Live interview a few days ago, she was asked a personal question about when she knew she was going to marry then-Aaron Johnson, who was just 18 years old when they got together (and she was 41). She was asked when she knew and this was her reply:

“The instant he asked me. There were two proposals, one before we had even kissed. It was pretty instant.”

[From HuffPo]

Whenever I write about Sam and Aaron, I feel like the world has gone crazy. In previous interviews, she’s said that Aaron was the one to bring stability and family values into the relationship, and now she’s saying that he proposed to her before they had even kissed and she knew instantly that they would marry? Still, they’ve been together for five years or so and they have two kids together. Maybe it really will work out in the long run.

Sam also has a Q&A with THR and she once again name-checks E.L. James as a “difficult” person to work with. I appreciate that neither of them are sugar-coating it. But what was really interesting in this piece was the part where Sam talked about Charlie Hunnam dropping out:

“It was devastating at the time. It was tough because I thought I had a true collaborator with Charlie. But I started to sense that he was getting nervous about the fact that there were three books. It suddenly proved a little difficult of a concept that 10 years of his life could be this character. I think that made him nervous. But I now can’t imagine anyone else but Jamie playing it. We just went through a real bumpy ride to get there.

[From THR]

Well well well. You know that’s not the official storyline, right? The official story was supposed to be that Charlie’s work schedule was just crazy and he didn’t have the necessary time to commit to the role. Charlie spoke very highly of Sam throughout his cop-out though, and I believe they truly liked each other. But now Sam says Charlie tapped out for other reasons: Charlie didn’t want to play the same dumb Sparkles-wannabe character in three films.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.