Apparently Universal thought the promotional tour surrounding the release of Fifty Shades Of Grey was entirely too naughty, because the studio has placed a gag order between the teeth of the cast of sequel Fifty Shades Darker and ordered them to bite down, according to a report in Page Six. The report, which comes from thrillingly anonymous, presumably masked sources, claims that executives (or “execs,” because this is a tabloid we’re talking about) at Universal Pictures have forbidden Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson, and the rest of the Fifty Shades gang from “making sexual and graphic references” in interviews about this film—and not in a playful, sexy sort of way, either.
This rather counter-intuitive assertion is backed up by an interview Darker co-star Marcia Gay Harden—who plays reticent heartthrob Christian Grey’s mom in the series—gives to The Sun, in which she says “we can’t talk too much about nipple clamps,” adding that Universal wants to focus on the romance this time around. “It is a love story after all—I don’t think they want us being too overtly sexual in interviews,” she adds. According to Harden, she was specifically told to knock off a series of suggestive tweets she sent in character as “Mama Grey”:
Well, the cast may be (contract) bound and (metaphorically) gagged, but The A.V. Club is under no such obligation. We solemnly swear to make as many double entendres and dirty jokes as our immature minds can muster in the buildup (heh) and release (double heh) of our Fifty Shades Darker review, coming this Thursday.