Dakota Johnson Says She’d “Kiss Annie Hathaway for the Rest of My Life” During ‘Verity’ Press Tour

‘Verity‘ has been building buzz for months as one of the more intense literary adaptations heading to theaters this fall, and the film’s press tour is now giving fans their first real taste of the chemistry between its three leads. Based on the Colleen Hoover novel of the same name, the Amazon MGM Studios thriller follows a struggling writer named Lowen, played by Dakota Johnson, who is hired to finish a bestselling book series after its original author, Verity Crawford, is left unable to write following a mysterious accident.

Anne Hathaway plays Verity opposite Johnson, with Josh Hartnett rounding out the central trio as Verity’s husband Jeremy, a role that puts him squarely in the middle of the story’s tangled, increasingly disturbing dynamics. Director Michael Showalter’s adaptation leans into the source material’s darker, more intimate territory, and that includes a reported abundance of romantic and physical tension between the characters.

That intensity apparently extended off screen too, and it came up directly during a joint press interview promoting the film ahead of its October 2 release. When asked about the sheer number of intimate scenes packed into the movie, which the interviewer reportedly described as turning the shoot into something of a “kissathon,” Johnson did not hold back about who she enjoyed working with most.

'Verity: Dakota Johnson Would Kiss Anne Hathaway 'for Rest of My Life' pic.twitter.com/KEckSyrfxz

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“I would kiss Annie [Hathaway] for the rest of my life,” Johnson said during the ‘Verity’ press. The comment quickly spread across social media, with fans latching onto both the bluntness of the line and the playful jab it landed at her other co-star.

Johnson went even further in the same conversation, adding that she would kiss Hathaway “every day” and that she would be there “if you need me,” before closing with a cheeky “sorry Josh” aimed at Hartnett. Hathaway, for her part, responded to the “kissathon” description of the shoot by joking that “it’s a miracle nobody got sick,” acknowledging just how many takes the cast had to get through together.

Hartnett did not seem bothered by getting left out of the praise, describing his time on set with both actresses in warmer terms elsewhere in the press cycle. He said the trio had “a fun working relationship the whole time on set,” noting that despite the film’s dark subject matter, they spent much of the shoot laughing and goofing around between takes.

First trailer for ‘VERITY’, starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett.

The film follows a woman who discovers disturbing truths about an iconic author after being hired to ghostwrite her latest book.

In theaters on October 2. pic.twitter.com/rgP3CMo7XJ

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That kind of easy camaraderie tends to read well heading into a film built around betrayal, obsession, and a slowly unraveling marriage, since audiences often respond to knowing the actors behind such tense material actually enjoyed making it together. It also fits the pattern of Colleen Hoover adaptations generating outsized social media attention well before release, given how devoted her book fandom already is heading into any screen version of her work.

With ‘Verity’ now just weeks away from theaters, moments like Johnson’s comment are exactly the kind of press tour soundbite that tends to keep a film’s marketing buzzing in the lead-up to release. Whether the finished movie lives up to the chemistry its stars are teasing remains to be seen, but for now fans have plenty to speculate about regarding just how far that on-set closeness translates to the screen.

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