TMS Muse of the Week: Scarlett Johansson

(Focus Features)

For the past couple of years, movie star Scarlett Johansson has been reflecting on how her mature rise to fame at only 18 years old has affected her years later as a grown adult. You might be thinking—wait, wasn’t Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) Scarlett’s big break? Where she played a newlywed college graduate who has an emotional affair with Bill Murray’s character in Tokyo? Yep, and the film was shot only two months before Scarlett’s 18th birthday, while Bill turned 52 during filming. It’s a testament to Sofia’s direction, Scarlett’s performance and her chemistry with Bill that viewers didn’t even noticed Scarlett was still a teenager, and people didn’t start talking about how weird that is until she began bringing it up herself. I’m about four years younger than Scarlett and saw Lost in Translation in theaters. I wasn’t really clued in on the specifics of the movie’s production history at the time; plus, when you’re 14, a few years older feels like a big difference. Looking back, it’s funny Scarlett followed Translation’s success with another serious project, Peter Webber’s historical drama Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), before appearing as school students in Brian Robbins’ teen comedy The Perfect Score (2004) and Paul Weitz’s family dramedy In Good Company (2004). Since it’s common for 20something actors to continue playing teenagers on screen, the casting still didn’t tip people off how young the actress was back then.

Unlike her peers like Anne Hathaway, Kirsten Dunst and Lindsay Lohan, Scarlett wasn’t famous for family oriented features a la Garry Marshall’s The Princess Diaries (2001), Sam Raimi’s Spider-man (2002) or Mark Waters’ Mean Girls (2004). Even during her days as a child actor, Scarlett’s resume was a bit more unique. Her first lead role was as a runaway in Lisa Krueger’s independent drama Manny & Lo (1996) and her first big Hollywood movie was playing Kristin Scott Thomas’ disabled daughter in Robert Redford’s romance The Horse Whisperer (1998). Four years later she co-starred as Thora Birch’s best friend in Terry Zwigoff’s indie teen dramedy Ghost World (2001) and two years after Lost in Translation she became a global sex symbol as the female lead in Woody Allen’s erotic thriller Match Point (2005). A modern remake of one of Woody’s classics, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), the filmmaker was at a point where he needed a huge hit to be able to carry on with his steady creative freedom. Casting Scarlett along with Irish up-and-comer Jonathan Rhys Meyers in a familiar story successfully did the trick. Woody’s popularity was revived and Scarlett was the hottest blonde bombshell in Hollywood overnight with Match Point. The two went on to collaborate twice more, including another hit with Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008).

(via fanpop.com)

I’ve always pointed to Scarlett as having the career any rising actress would aspire to. She’s got the beauty, the talent, the experience, the indie cred and the blockbuster paychecks. A lot of younger people don’t realize this now, but when Scarlett was cast as Black Widow for Marvel’s Avengers movie franchise from 2010 to 2019, some film fans saw it as her selling out after being associated with smaller scale viewing like Ghost World and Lost in Translation. [Granted, her resume hasn’t been completely flawless either, starting with Rob Reiner’s infamous flop North (1994), to Raja Gosnell’s Home Alone 3 (1997), Ellory Elkayem’s Eight Legged Freaks (2002) and Michael Bay’s The Island (2005).] But I can see how after winning Best Actress at the BAFTAs for Translation and becoming a favorite of artists and critics, she probably thought it was a good time to sign up for something fun that would also guarantee regular employment. Plus she could still continue with artsy films on the side. Such as in 2013, when she was praised for her work in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and Spike Jonze’s Her; and in 2019 where she received double Oscar nominations for Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story and Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit. All of this on top of a brief stint experimenting with alternative music in 2008-2012 and winning a Tony for Best Actress in a 2010 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s ‘A View from the Bridge’ as well.

Even though she has an awkward habit of sticking her foot in her mouth when it comes to public statements—such as doubling down on having no regrets working with Woody or excusing the whitewashing accusations when she played a role originally written as Asian in Rupert Sanders’ Ghost in the Shell (2017)—on the surface, it’s hard to deny a more versatile female superstar currently. But to bring this all the way back around, how does Scarlett feel about spending her whole adult life admired and fawned after? She is one of the very lucky child/teen stars to not publicly deal with addiction and other personal issues. In some contemporary interviews, like on Howard Stern or Gwyneth Paltrow’s podcast, Scarlett doesn’t seem too bothered by playing adult roles while she was finishing high school. She’s still proud of Lost in Translation, but she’s been wondering since becoming a mother: why was it so easy to get hired for mature roles so soon? Why didn’t Sofia cast someone closer to her own age, since the character was based on herself? Why didn’t anyone tell her she didn’t have to ramp up the sex appeal so quickly? Why were so few of her leading men close to her age? When fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi infamously poked one of her breasts on the red carpet of the 2006 Golden Globes, why did people joke about him being gay rather than be appalled for Scarlett? On some social media sites, such as Tumblr, her name’s tag isn’t suggested because there are so many fake photo edits posted of her topless or naked; which is probably one reason she waited so long to shoot her first official nude scenes in Under the Skin. And of course, all of this is even more uncomfortable when you realize people started sexualizing her when she was barely 20.

Is Scarlett a cautionary tale? Not exactly. Is she a victim of coercion? It’s hard to tell. Is she perhaps trying to shed light on how bizarre the moviemaking business can be while producing art? Maybe. Whatever the case, let’s be relieved the news on Ms. Johansson these days is on her starring in Wes Anderson’s new flick Asteroid City and not anything grim.