Anastasia Steele changed Dakota Johnson's life.

As the daughter of Melanie Griffith (and the granddaughter of Tippi Hedren) and Don Johnson, she's part of a huge Hollywood dynasty. But she wasn't pressured into acting and took her time getting into the family business. Before Fifty Shades of Grey, Johnson was a stable-working actress who had yet to truly breakout. After the blockbuster premiered, she took her rightful seat next to her mother and grandmother and became a household name.

But taking the role had its challenges. This was a very graphic and erotic film, based on an even more graphic and erotic book. Johnson, in all her inexperience, along with her sexy co-star Jamie Dornan, had to expose themselves in uncomfortable scenes constantly. Even the most experienced actors and actresses wouldn't have been able to do it.

For everything that they had to do in the trilogy, you'd think Johnson and Dornan were paid handsomely, considering what they had to do and how well the films did. It turns out they really weren't... at least on the first film. Anastasia asked Christian, "What would I get out of this?" Not a lot, apparently.

Critics Hated It; Fans Loved It

Fifty Shades of Grey may have scored 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but fans of all ages were obsessed with the trilogy of books and films and still are to this day. The box office doesn't lie. The first film made $569.7 million alone, with the second and third films making over $350 million each.

Fifty Shades might have been successful, but there was a lot of drama onset. There were rumors that Johnson and Dornan didn't like each other, but that's been confirmed wrong. The director, Sam Taylor-Johnson, was removed from making the last two films due to conflicts with the book's author, E.L. James, who was on set every day and treated the trilogy like her baby. There was also the fact that Dornan wanted to quit, leaving the trilogy one film in because he didn't like all the attention he was getting.

Related: What Happened Between Keira Knightley And Jamie Dornan?

Then there was the unfortunate situation of both the lead actor's salaries. They were only paid $250,000 each, plus an undisclosed percentage of the box office, which is a deficient number when looking at other celebrities' salaries on blockbusting films. They didn't receive any backend points either.

So as you can imagine, they both wanted to renegotiate their contracts. They weren't going to strut their stuff for nothing.

This has quite often been done in Hollywood before. Many of the actors in the MCU start with salaries worth peanuts and then gone on to get an exponential pay raise for their next film. Jennifer Lawrence renegotiated her salary for Catching Fire after she was only paid $500,000 for Hunger Games.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, both stars wanted to bump their salaries up to seven figures.

Related: 10 Things Jamie Dornan Has Done Since 'Fifty Shades Of Grey'

"It was a very basic franchise-starter deal," a source told THR about the low salaries. "Look at Twilight and Hunger Games, and that’s where it is heading." Meaning they didn't know how well the first film would do, so they had to pay the actors low salaries in case of disaster.

At the time, Fifty Shades producer Dana Brunetti would divulge on any specifics about the renegotiation but did say, "That was the great thing about this film — we knew we were going to be able to make stars. Now it’s their opportunity to get paid on other projects. It’s been a breakout role for both of them. I’m sure they are getting tons of offers on other things."

But just because they both became household names does not mean that they wanted to continue to be paid peanuts.

It was reportedly a lengthy process to get the raises, but both Johnson and Dornan eventually received them. The studios capped off their salaries at $1 million each because they also took some points for profit sharing, reports Koimoi.

Related: 10 Things Dakota Johnson Has Done Since Fifty Shades Of Grey

After the raise, Dornan's firm, Where's The Danger Ltd., revealed the actor made the equivalent of $1,184,935 in dividends in 2016 from the films.

Even though Johnson and Dornan's salaries don't seem low to the average person, most people don't make that in a year; it is low for celebrities. If Fifty Shades were a stand-alone, then we'd understand, but this was a hugely successful franchise, and the studios were clearly chinsing out. They earned well over their budget, yet they didn't want to pay their actors fairly. But Johnson comes from a family of strong women, so they probably gave her some sound advice at the time. Let's hope she found a way to get what she felt she deserved.

Next: Jamie Dornan Looks Unrecognizable In These Old Photos