Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson (born November 22, 1984) is an American actress, model and singer. Johansson made her film debut in North (1994) and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo (1996). She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Ghost World (2001). She shifted to adult roles with her performances in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003), for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Both films earned her Golden Globe Award nominations.A role in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) earned Johansson a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Johansson garnered another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress with her role in Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005). She went on to star in two further Allen movies: Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson has appeared in other successful films, such as Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006). Johansson played popular Marvel comic book character Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in the films Iron Man 2 (2010) and The Avengers (2012).
The 2010 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge gave Johansson some of her best reviews for her acting, and she received a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. On May 20, 2008, Johansson debuted as a vocalist on her first album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, which comprises mostly cover versions of Tom Waits songs. Her second album, Break Up, with Pete Yorn, was released in September 2009. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce honored Scarlett Johansson with the 2,470th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 2, 2012 in front of Madame Tussauds in Hollywood. Johansson is also considered as one of the modern female sex symbols in Hollywood and is often listed as one of the most attractive celebrities.
Scarlett Johansson was born in New York City on November 22, 1984. Her father, Karsten Johansson, is a Danish-born architect originally from Copenhagen, and her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was a screenwriter and director. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a producer, comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from the Bronx. Melanie’s ancestors emigrated to New York from Minsk, Belarus. She has an older sister, Vanessa, who is an actress; an older brother, Adrian; a twin brother, Hunter (who appeared with her in the film Manny & Lo);and an older half-brother, Christian, from her father’s first marriage.Johansson grew up in a household with “little money”, and with a mother who was a “film buff”. She and her brother, Hunter, attended P.S. 41 in upper-middle-class Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan for elementary school. Johansson began her theatrical training by attending and graduating from Professional Children’s School in Manhattan in 2002.
Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions.She made her film debut at nine years old, as John Ritter’s daughter in the 1994 fantasy comedy North.Following minor roles in the 1995 film Just Cause, as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw, and If Lucy Fell in 1996, she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female, and positive reviews, one noting, “[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of … Scarlett Johansson”,while San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle commentated on her “peaceful aura”, and wrote, “If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress.”
After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 in 1997, Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in the 1998 film The Horse Whisperer, directed by Robert Redford. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film. In 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig and in 2001 in the neo-noir Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn’t There. Also in 1999, she appeared in the music video for Mandy Moore’s single, “Candy”. Although the film was not a box office success, she received praise for her break-out role in the 2001 film, Ghost World. Credited with “sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age”, Johansson went on to win the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2002, Johansson appeared in the comedy-horror thriller Eight Legged Freaks, starring David Arquette.
Johansson made the transition from teen roles to adult roles, with two such roles in 2003. In the Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation, she played Charlotte, a listless and lonely young wife, opposite Bill Murray. Roger Ebert wrote that he loved the film and described the performances of Johansson and Murray as “wonderful.” Entertainment Weekly wrote of Johansson’s “embracing, restful serenity,” and the New York Times said, “At 18, the actress gets away with playing a 25-year-old woman by using her husky voice to test the level of acidity in the air … Ms. Johansson is not nearly as accomplished a performer as Mr. Murray, but Ms. Coppola gets around this by using Charlotte’s simplicity and curiosity as keys to her character.” Johansson won the BAFTA Award and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She received nominations from a number of film critic organizations, including the Broadcast Film Critics Association, and the Chicago Film Critics Association,Johansson played Griet in Peter Webber’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. While noting, “Audiences feel as if they are spying on a moment of artistic inspiration when painter Vermeer creates the title work”, USA Today praised her, suggesting, “[She] is having a banner year that Oscar voters should recognize.” In his review for the New Yorker, Anthony Lane said, “What keeps Webber’s movie alive is the tenseness of the setup … and, above all, the presence of Johansson. She is often wordless and close to plain onscreen, but wait for the ardor with which she can summon a closeup and bloom under its gaze; this is her film, not Vermeer’s, all the way.” Owen Gleiberman, for Entertainment Weekly, wrote of her “nearly silent performance”, observing, “The interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic.” She was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She was also nominated by the London Film Critics’ Circle, the Phoenix Film Critics Society and the British Independent Film Awards.Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in June 2004. In the same year, she voiced a role in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and appeared in an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan entitled A Good Woman, opposite Helen Hunt and Tom Wilkinson. It received a limited U.S. release, and was both a box office and critical failure. It was described by the New York Times as a “misbegotten Hollywood-minded screen adaptation” with “an excruciating divide between the film’s British actors (led by Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Campbell Moore), who are comfortable delivering Wilde’s aphorisms … and its American marquee names, Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson, [who have] little connection to the English language as spoken in the high Wildean style.” She also appeared in the critically panned, teen, heist film The Perfect Score and in In Good Company, in a supporting role opposite Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid. Her performance in the dark, Southern drama, A Love Song for Bobby Long, earned her a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination.
In July 2005, Johansson starred, with Ewan McGregor, in Michael Bay’s science fiction film, The Island, in dual roles as Sarah Jordan and her clone, Jordan Two Delta. The film was a commercial failure and received mixed critical reviews. In contrast, her role as Nola, the American actress with whom Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is obsessed, in the Woody Allen-directed drama Match Point, was well received. The New York Times said, “Ms. Johansson and Mr. Rhys-Meyers manage some of the best acting seen in a Woody Allen movie in a long time, escaping the archness and emotional disconnection that his writing often imposes.” Mick LaSalle, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, said, “[Johansson] is a powerhouse from the word go”, and, “[Her performance] borders on astonishing.” Johansson received her fourth Golden Globe nomination, and one from the Chicago Film Critics Association, for Best Supporting Actress.A young woman with tousled medium length blonde hair loosely around her shoulders and face, looking to her right, her right arm slightly behind her, stands in the middle of a group of men. She is dressed in denim jeans, a light gray short sleeved shirt and a camera hangs around her neck.In another collaboration with Allen, Johansson was cast opposite Hugh Jackman and Allen in the 2006 feature, Scoop. While the film enjoyed a modest worldwide box office success, it received mixed reviews by critics. The New York Times called the film “not especially funny yet oddly appealing” and cited parallels to The Thin Man, saying, “[while] Johansson is certainly no Myrna Loy, [her] performance is all over the place … but finally works for a film that is itself all over the place. Mr. Allen seems happy to just watch her strut her stuff, and after a while so are we.” New York magazine said, “Johansson doesn’t have the natural buoyancy to play a screwball Nancy Drew, [but] she’s smart enough to know what’s needed (a young Diane Keaton), and manages to rouse herself”, while USA Today criticized “her delivery of Allenesque one-liners” as “clunky”, and “sometimes, she seems in over her head playing opposite Allen.” The same year, she appeared in Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson later said she was a De Palma fan and had wanted to work with him on the film, even though she thought that she was “physically wrong” for the part. Her reviews were mixed. CNN.com noted, “[Johansson] takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen,” whereas the Kalamazoo Gazette referred to Johansson as “miscast”.Johansson next had a supporting role in the Christopher Nolan thriller The Prestige (2006), again opposite Hugh Jackman, as well as Christian Bale. Nolan, who described Johansson as possessing an “ambiguity… a shielded quality”, said he was “very keen” for her to play the role. Johansson said, “[she] loved working with [Nolan]”, and he was “incredibly focused and driven and involved, and really involved in the performance in every aspect.” The film was both a critical and a worldwide box office success, recommended by the Los Angeles Times as “an adult, provocative piece of work. Also in 2006, Johansson starred in a short film directed by Bennett Miller and set to Bob Dylan’s “When the Deal Goes Down…”, released to promote Dylan’s album, Modern Times.
Johansson starred in 2007’s The Nanny Diaries, alongside Laura Linney. The film performed only marginally well at the box office, and was critically panned. Johansson’s reviews were mixed, with Variety saying, “[She] essays an engaging heroine”, while The New Yorker criticized her for looking “merely confused” while “trying to give the material a plausible emotional center”.In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle said, “There’s something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual.”
In 2008, she starred in The Other Boleyn Girl, opposite Natalie Portman and Eric Bana, a film which garnered mixed reviews. Writing for Rolling Stone, Pete Travers criticized the film for “[moving] in frustrating herks and jerks”, but was more positive in his assessment of Johansson and Portman, and wrote, “What works is the combustible teaming of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, who give the Boleyn hotties a tough core of intelligence and wit, swinging the film’s sixteenth-century protofeminist issues handily into this one.” Variety credited the cast as “almost flawless … at the top of its game”, citing “Johansson’s quieter Mary … as the pic’s emotional center, her tender love story with the conflicted monarch evoking the only genuine feelings on display.”She filmed her third Woody Allen film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in Spain, appearing opposite Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. The film was one of Allen’s most profitable and appeared on many critics’ top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Overall, the film received generally favorable reviews and brought co-star Cruz numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Johansson was described as being “open and malleable” and “serves as a nice contrast to the [other actors]” Johansson played Silken Floss, a femme fatale and ally of Samuel L. Jackson’s villain The Octopus, in Frank Miller’s film noir, comedy adaptation of The Spirit. The film, described as “a great-looking movie with an awkward balance of pulp noir and campy self-awareness” and “style without substance, style whirling in a senseless void”,received mostly poor reviews.Johansson appeared in the role of Anna, a yoga instructor, in the 2009 ensemble cast of He’s Just Not That Into You, with Jennifer Connelly, Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore and Kevin Connolly. The film was a box office success but only gained average critical reception.The San Francisco Chronicle review notes, “[The film] never soars, but it never flags” yet lauds Johansson, saying, “She has become a deft comic actress.”The Los Angeles Times calls the film an “anti-romantic romantic comedy” and cites the scenario in which Johansson appears with Jennifer Connelly and Bradley Cooper as having “more meat than others”, making it “one of the best.” The Baltimore Sun criticized the film, saying, “[It] stumbles somewhat when it tries to get serious”, but praised Johansson for “proving she doesn’t need Woody Allen to be funny.”
In March 2009, Johansson signed on to play Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. The Black Widow in Iron Man 2 after a scheduling conflict forced Emily Blunt to drop out of the part. The film, released in May 2010, was directed by Jon Favreau and also starred Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson and Sam Rockwell. Appearing at San Diego Comic-Con on July 26, 2009, Johansson joked about her audition for the film, saying it consisted of “a couple of deep knee bends and lunges”, but Favreau credited her with performing her own stunts: “All the fighting and wire work is her own. She worked really hard and it shows on the screen.” Iron Man 2 was a box office success and received mostly positive reviews from critcs. In 2011, Johansson played the role of Kelly, a zookeeper in the family film We Bought a Zoo. The film gained mainly favorable reviews. Calvin Wilson of St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that Johansson “brings to Kelly just the right blend of spunkiness and hard-won maturity.” Johansson reprised the role of Natasha Romanoff in Marvel’s The Avengers in 2012. The Avengers received positive reviews and was highly successful at the box office, becoming the third highest-grossing film both in the United States and worldwide. Johansson in particular was credited with making her character “steely, vulnerable, cunning and funny, often in the same breath” and for providing the most human moments in the film and showing “the challenge of being a female superhero in a comic-book universe—and an empowered woman in the real world.”
In November 2010, Johansson has been cast in the film adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel Under the Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer. In November 2011, it was reported she plans to make her directional debut by adapting Truman Capote’s novel, Summer Crossing whose screenplay will be written by playwright Tristine Skyler. In early March 2012, it was announced that Johansson had been cast as Janet Leigh in the upcoming Sacha Gervasi-directed film Hitchcock, a behind-the-scenes drama about the making of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho.Johansson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 2, 2012 located at 6931 Hollywood Blvd., in front of Madame Tussauds Hollywood wax museum. In October 2012, it was reported that Johansson would reprise her role as Black Widow in the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
