1. Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam was originally cast as Christian Grey, but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts. Charlie said he wouldn't have taken the role if he didn't want to do it but also said he was feeling the pressure, telling CNN that he “didn’t want to fail on such a grand scale."
2. Lucy Hale auditioned for the role of Anastasia and said it was “uncomfortable.” "There were some things that I was so embarrassed to be reading out loud, but it's one of those things where you have to commit wholeheartedly or you're going to make a fool of yourself," she told Cosmopolitan in 2014.
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3. The novel prompted rope sales to skyrocket at hardware stores across the country. Business Insider notes that Lexington Hardware in NYC was flooded with women in search of “soft cotton rope.”
4. Jamie Dornan visited a sex dungeon for research and observed a dominant “had some fun with his submissive.” He told British GQ it was "very playful and jovial and not at all dark and serious."
5. While there are no full-frontal shots of Jamie in the movie, he did give this wonderful description of how his penis was handled during filming: “As a guy you put all your essentials in a little bag and you tie it up like a little bag of grapes and it's tucked away.”
6. Dakota Johnson wore “a patch that went over her pubic area" that kept her covered up. The pubic hair that you see in the movie was added in during post-production.
7. She also had a butt double for the heavy-duty spanking scenes.
8. After filming wrapped on each scene, Jamie would be the first person to rush over and cover Dakota up if she was naked. "I’m not just going to leave her lying there so exposed," he said on the TODAY show, adding jokingly, "I was tempted at times."
9. Jamie's wife, Amelia Warner, has never seen the first movie. "Why would she watch it?" Jamie asked Entertainment Tonight. Good question.
10. When writing the sex scenes, author E. L.James listened to a playlist that included Bruce Springsteen, the Black Eyed Peas, Frank Sinatra, Kings of Leon, and Britney Spears.
11. The props and toys that the stars used were real, but some were modified with rabbit fur or softer leather so they wouldn’t hurt Dakota too much.
12. Sam Taylor-Johnson, who directed the first movie, waited until the very end of production to shoot the more intimate scenes (including the Red Room encounters) so Dakota and Jamie had plenty of time to get acquainted.
13. Jamie, formerly an underwear model, was infamously dubbed "The Golden Torso" by The New York Times in 2006.
14. The grand piano that Christian plays in the film is a Fazioli F278, with a cost estimated at nearly $270,000. His helicopter is valued at $3.2 million, while his penthouse comes in at a cool $6.2 million. Casual.
15. Before she renamed it Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James originally called the story of Christian and Ana “Master of the Universe.”
16. Dakota kept a flogger from the set of the first movie (and had to watch while Giuliana Rancic explained the term "flogger" on live TV during the Oscars red carpet).
17. The film grossed over $500 million worldwide — only the sixth R-rated movie to do so. Your move, Fifty Shades Darker.
