Today marks the first time actors Dakota Johnson and Alexander Skårsgard have collaborated on a project. “I’ve known Dakota for over 10 years,” Skårsgard tells me, zooming in from the Murderbot season two set in Madrid, Spain. “But this was the first time we were able to work together. I absolutely adore her.” It took one of fashion’s brightest minds, Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele, to get the two in a room. Well, also in a moving vehicle. And maybe out in the desert, too. It’s all for the duo’s first partnership as the faces of the revived Valentino Vendetta fragrances. A handful of images from the campaign, which was shot by Inez & Vinoodh, have been revealed today, with a film coming later this summer (the steamy and exciting plot is still under wraps, except for what the two reveal below).
“Alexander is very funny,” Johnson says of her co-star. “In the fragrance film, there isn’t any dialogue, but he was still so fun to work with. Calm and down for anything.”
Inez & Vinoodh for Valentino Beauty
Inez & Vinoodh for Valentino Beauty
That chemistry led to an anything-goes sort of atmosphere on set. Johnson calls the Vendetta campaign and forthcoming film “a glimpse into a relationship that seems to be quite intense and fiery.” But the known jokester also took time to have fun with her co-star between scenes. “We shot it in the countryside, so there wasn’t much adventuring around. But Alexander was always wearing this little skinny scarf on set, like a blazer with no shirt underneath. So, I started calling him Alexander Scarfsgård”
Skårsgard’s relationship with the Vendetta fragrance actually began 35 years ago with an original bottle of the scent. “I have strong memories of applying way too much of it before every school dance when I was younger,” he laughs. The new Valentino Uomo juice is made with fragrance notes that the grown-up Skårsgard is into as well: ginger, cinnamon liquor, and patchouli. The Donna edition of Vendetta centers around a flower that has always been one of Johnson’s favorites: The heady white flower tuberose, which is mixed with red orange and sandalwood. “My favorite thing about it is that it’s intoxicating but still soft.”
While the tease of the forthcoming film is far from vanilla (in both fragrance profile and mood), Skårsgard says his personal approach to scent is more on the conservative side. “I use fragrance regularly, but very modestly. It’s nice when it blends with your natural scent rather than overpowering it. I also learned that lesson about overpowering the hard way after dousing myself in Vendetta through the ’90s.”