Scarlett Johansson – A Touch of Scarlett

Scarlett Johansson is just 22 years old and has already been acting professionally for 12 years. Now the rising young actress is poised to break onto the A-list in Hollywood for all the right reasons.

Scarlett Johansson is one of the busiest and one of the hardest working actresses in Hollywood today. In 2005, she made four films, in 2006, she made five more, and between now and 2009 she will appear in another six films. “I tend to accept roles that really interest me and that I think I will learn from,” says Johansson. “Plus the fact that I have a hard time saying no to anything interesting that comes my way whether I have the time to do them or not!” Because of the notoriety  she has earned, she is offered literally hundreds of projects a year.

Scarlett Johansson was born on November 22, 1984. Her background is a mixture of Danish and Polish. She has an older sister named Vanessa and a twin brother named Hunter who is three minutes younger than her. She always had a notion that she wanted to be an actress because she enjoyed dressing up and playing make-believe as a child, but her family didn’t realize just how serious this little girl was about getting her career underway. Johansson would have small roles in seven films before auditioning for Robert Redford for a pivotal role in The Horse Whisperer when she was just ten years old. She impressed everyone with her emotional audition and won the role. The film was a critical success, which was due largely to Johansson’s performance. She would continue to work steadily for the next few years until she earned the role that would define her as a young adult actress – the role of Charlotte in the critical and commercial hit Lost In Translation for writer/director Sofia Coppola. She prepared for her role by living on the Japanese island of Hokkaido for a while before shooting began. After the success of that film, Johansson soon found herself the focus of tabloid interest, especially due to one particularly juicy story she told, which also happened to be the theme of Lost In Translation – the relationship between an older man and a younger woman. She said it was something that mirrored her own personal life. “I have a connection to older men that I don’t find that I have with men my own age,” said Johansson. “I can’t see myself ever being with anyone younger than 30.” She stayed true to her word with a relationship with actor Benicio Del Toro, who is 17 years older than her. As a rule, Scarlett Johansson stays away from speaking publicly about her personal relationships. “Every time I have talked about a relationship in an interview it has always come around and kicked me in the butt,” says Johansson. “It is just better to say nothing and let people speculate.” The fact that Johansson does not reveal a lot about herself in interviews is one of the main reasons she remains attractive to directors – there is no categorizing Scarlett Johansson – she can play anything.

Johansson was hand-picked by Tom Cruise to appear in Mission Impossible III but then had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with her other big budget action film, The Island in which she starred opposite Ewan McGregor. But before you label her as having “gone Hollywood,” you should hear her feelings about the place. “Everyone in Hollywood is so damn skinny,” she says. “Los Angeles can be a very hard place to be if you don’t have people around you that you love and that can keep you grounded. It can be a very sad and very lonely place and it can eat you up if you don’t take care of yourself because everything seems focused on appearance here, and I will never be 5’11” and 120 lbs – I am 5’4” and full-figured and I like it that way.” And that is a good thing because one of the scariest experiences that she has ever had was driving down a street in Los Angeles and catching sight of a huge billboard featuring her picture. “It was huge – my face! My breasts! I freaked out – all I could see was cleavage! And I kept telling myself, ‘that is me up there.’ I had no idea I was so voluptuous.”

This attitude is not confined to her appearance and the shallow superficiality that Hollywood elicits. She is also concerned about the effects of fame and its fleeting nature. “I don’t think there is any kind of preparation you can do to ease the stress of sudden celebrity,” says Johansson. “The part that I found really hard to deal with was reckoning with the fact that I am the same person I was. There is nothing different about me, only now I am treated much differently by those around me.” And has she succumbed to the trappings of that sudden fame? “I have not really fallen into that way of thinking,” she says. “I really feel lucky to be doing this stuff. I always think that the last film I have done will actually be the last film that I will do. I have no sense of self-confidence about the longevity of my career.” Johansson takes the decidedly un-Hollywood position on aging as well. She embraces getting older and the experience it brings. “I have never believed you are limited one way or the other by age,” she says. “In fact, I identify with my grandmother who is in her eighties just as much as I identify with my sister.”

There are a number of major filmmakers out there who disagree with her views on the potentially fleeting nature of her career. Woody Allen chose Johansson for starring roles in two of his films in a row – Match Point and Proof. Director Brian DePalma picked Johansson for a lead role in his long awaited film The Black Dahlia.

Part of the reason that filmmakers are so eager to work with Johansson is the fearless way she attacks her work. She is not afraid of doing accents or playing period characters. In fact, one of her upcoming films has her playing Mary, Queen of Scots.

Scarlett Johansson’s career has been gaining momentum with each passing year and each passing film role, and it is doing so because she is constantly learning and taking risks to expand her range. But what about when she is not working? What does a hot young movie star do to really celebrate life? “To be honest, my favourite feeling is that early time after just falling in love with someone – everything in life is beautiful and time stands still. Those are the times I remember most fondly.”