What happens in the Red Room in 50 shades of GREY?

In Fifty Shades of Grey, the moment Ana steps into the Red Room of Pain is the moment that her relationship with Christian (and her life) changes. So when it came time for Dakota Johnson to play that moment, she decided that she wanted it to be as real as possible. In other words, Ana’s first time in the Red Room was also Johnson’s first time in the Red Room.

In an exclusive clip from the film’s Blu-ray release, Johnson talks about her authentic reaction to the Room, while Jamie Dornan explains just how much time he spent in there … alone.

Fifty Shades of Grey will be released on Digital HD on Friday, May 1, followed by a Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand release on Friday, May 8.

Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L James, whose real name is Erika Leonard, had more influence than most writers over the way her racy book was transformed into a movie. But there was one scene that she was particularly concerned about. “I was most worried about the scenes in the Red Room. I wanted them to be tasteful and erotic,” she says. “That was a journey, but we got there in the end.”

The Red Room, for those novitiates to the cult of Fifty Shades, is the room where the moody millionaire Christian Grey indulges his appetite for less mainstream boudoir behavior. Leonard was worried that it would come off looking like a cheesy dungeon, so she gave quite specific instructions to the production design team.

“She actually had these things drawn up,” says producer Dana Brunetti. “She literally had drawings of them that she gave to our production designers.”

The design team was headed up by husband and wife David and Sandy Wasco, who weren’t inexperienced in this area; they worked on Pulp Fiction, which features a memorable character known as the gimp, who’s into bondage. “Erika was able to do a little doodle on an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper,” says David. “She said, ‘This would be where the spanking bench would be, this would be where the sofa would be.’ And we used that.”

The Wascos knew the Red Room would be the most challenging set to design. “We really anguished over that the most,” says David. “We had to,” adds Sandy. “You could interview everyone that read the book and they’d have a different version of it.” The Wascos met with experts—dominants and dominatrices, who have wealthy clients “just like Christian Grey,” says David. “It was much more sophisticated than anyone going through the internet is led to expect—much more respectful.”

From these consultants, the design team learned such useful tips as using leather on the floor, because people spend a lot of time kneeling. “So we ended up with real leather, and with shoe tacks that were brass every two inches,” says David. They used leather on the bed, with no sheets, because—after all—the bed’s not for sleeping.

If Leonard was in charge of the room’s layout, director Sam Taylor-Johnson had some strong feelings about the finishes. She told the designers she wanted something dumbfounding. “She was always mentioning Kubrick movies. She wanted this room to be something that you’d never forget once you saw it,” says Sandy. “She wanted it to be more related to a high end stable. So [the equipment] was built in brown, with brown leathers, and brown burled woods and other woods, versus the black that you see that’s more common. It was pretty.”

If it sounds odd to call a room where floggings might take place ‘pretty’, then the way the designers talk about the equipment will seem equally unusual. “The items that we ended up making were very bespoke, and very beautiful,” says David. Most of the furniture and implements—the custom-made stirrups, horse saddle chair, and the beds were custom made and shipped from England. Extremely soft ropes had to be ordered and dyed red.

“People [working on the film] couldn’t keep their hands off the stuff,” he adds. “Some of them are tails and fuzzy. They’re really fun.”

Read next: Sex Scenes Make Up One-Fifth of Fifty Shades of Grey

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If you’ve been kept awake at night wondering what lies in the infamous 50 Shades of Grey red room, we’ve got some answers for you.

According to 26-year-old actress Dakota Johnson, who plays the naive Anastasia Steele in the 50 Shades film series, there were all sorts of “crazy” things in 50 Shades of Grey red room.

In addition to cuffs, whips, ropes, paddles, ben wa balls and eye masks, other items you may not have seen in the movie include things “like certain chairs for certain positions,” Johnson told The Independent, adding that the one item that really stuck in her mind was “this tiny little leather chair that looks like that thing when you go to the gynaecologist and put your feet up.”

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Another crowd favourite from the red room, whips. Source: Youtube.

Both the book and film series drew equal measures of praise and hate for their depiction of BDSM and the dominant/submissive relationship between Anastasia and Christian, played by Jamie Dornan.

While some critics labelled it abuse and others anti-feminist, Johnson spoke out about the mislabelling of who she sees as a highly complex character, saying that she does not see Anastasia as "a weak character or victim at all" adding that she hoped people would feel "more empowered" sexually after seeing the film. 3:59]

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To keep her acting as authentic as possible, Johnson said that she avoided the room until the camera rolled. "I never saw the Red Room until the scene where you see me see it for the first time in the movie," she said.

"The thing with Ana is that she's never seen anything like this," Johnson explained, adding: "I wanted it to be a genuine experience".

Dornan said he also visited a sex dungeon to further understand his character.

Christian showing Anastasia the red room for the first time. Source: Youtube.

Currently on set filming 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed - the final two installments in the film trilogy - Johnson admitted the hot and heavy scenes are starting to wear a little thin, telling Interview Magazine they're actually "pretty tedious."

Surely the most sexually frustrated woman on the planet right now, she explains, "I've been simulating sex for seven hours straight right now."

And while Dornan seems like a pretty visually stunning specimen to spend hours sweating up against, Johnson reiterates, "we're not actually having sex," before adding, "I'm over it."

50 Shades Darker is scheduled for release in early 2017.

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