Oscar Profile #482: Scarlett Johansson

Born November 22, 1984 in New York, New York, Scarlett Johansson was one of four children of a Danish-born architect and his wife. She has a sister and two brothers, one of whom is her twin. The budding actress practiced singing and dancing as a child in front a mirror pretending to be Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis. She made her stage debut in off-Broadway’s Sophistry at the age of 8 and her film debut as John Ritter’s daughter in North at the age of 9.

Johansson’s first starring role was in 1996’sManny & Lo which earned her a Spirit Award nomination for her portrayal of a runaway pregnant teenager. She achieved wider attention with her performance in 1998’s The Horse Whisperer opposite Robert Redford, and followed that with strong performances in 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There and Ghost World for which she received critical huzzahs for her performance opposite Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi.

Two 2003 films brought the actress considerable attention. She was nominated for Golden Globes for both Lost in Translation in comedy and Girl with a Pearl Earring in drama. She also received dual BAFTA nominations for both, winning for Lost in Translation. Although widely expected to earn an Oscar nomination for one or the other, she failed to be nominated for either.

Johannson’s films for the remainder of the first decade of the century included A Love Song for Bobby Long opposite John Travolta, A Good Woman opposite Helen Hunt, In Good Company opposite Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace, Match Point opposite Jonathan Rhys Myers, Scoop opposite Woody Allen and Hugh Jackman, The Black Dahlia opposite Josh Hartnett and Hilary Swank, The Prestige opposite Jackman and Christian Bale, The Other Boleyn Girl opposite Natalie Portman and Eric Bana and Vicky Cristina Barcelona opposite Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall. She married actor Ryan Reynolds in 2008 and divorced him in 2011.

Appearing for the first time in a superhero movie, Johansson was Natasha AKA Black Widow in 2010’s Iron Man 2, a role she has reprised in the Avengers films and others in the Marvel franchise. Subsequent films within the early part of decade included We Bought a Zoo opposite Matt Damon, Hitchcock as Janet Leigh in support of Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren, Don Juan opposite Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Her as the voice of Joaquin Phoenix’s operating system, Hail Caesar! with George Clooney, Josh Brolin and Channing Tatum. She married French journalist Romain Dauriac in 2004 with whom she had a daughter. They divorced in 2017.

In the latter part of the decade Johansson was seen mostly as Black Widow in Marvel franchise films and heard in the blockbuster animated features, Jungle Book, Sing and Isle of Dogs. At the end of the decade, she had terrific roles in 2019’s Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit, both of which earned her Oscar nominations, one in lead, the other in support.

Scarlett Johansson will next be seen in Black Widow where her Marvel character is at long last front and center. She’s at the top of her game at 36.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003), directed by Sophia Coppola

Johansson scored Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her portrayal of the college grad who connects with aging actor Bill Murray in a Tokyo hotel, winning the BAFTA as did Murray. She also received nominations from both bodies for Girl with a Pearl Earring in which she played a 17th Century servant in the house of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer who became the model for his famed titled painting. Lost in Translation was nominated for four Oscars and Girl with a Pearl Earring was nominated for three, but Johansson wasn’t among the nominees for others.

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008), directed by Woody Allen

The third of three Woody Allen films Johansson made in the first decade of the 21st Century, following 2005’s Match Point and 2006’s Scoop featured the actress as Cristina, one of two American tourists in Barcelona for the summer, the other one played by Rebecca Hall. Both women catch the eye of painter Javier Bardem who has an affair with Johansson which becomes a ménage-a-trois when his volatile ex-wife joins the relationship. Bardem had just won his Oscar for No Country for Old Men and his future real-life wife Cruz would win for this.

HER (2012), directed by Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze’s delightful futuristic romance features wonderful performances by Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore, a lonely writer and Johansson in a voice only role as Samantha, the talking operating system with artificial intelligence that guides him. Numerous awards bodies saw fit to nominate Johansson for her performance but neither the Golden Globes, BAFTA nor Oscar would break precedent and grant a nomination for someone in a voice-only performance. Nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture, Score, Song, Production and Original Screenplay, it won the latter for writer-director Jonze.

MARRIAGE STORY (2019), directed by Noah Baumbach

Johansson has the difficult part of the actress-wife who leaves her comfortable life in New York for career opportunities in Los Angeles discarding her director-husband in the process. Written by writer-director Baumbach, the screenplay is based in part on his divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. With himself as the model for the director-husband played by Adam Driver, strive though he may have to make both characters equal, the husband does seem to be the more sympathetic character down to the selection of Sondheim songs the two are given. She gets “You Could Drive a Person Crazy”. He gets “Being Alive”.

JOJO RABBIT (2019), directed by Taika Waititi

That Johansson would receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for playing the wife in Marriage Story was never in doubt. That she would receive a second nomination in the same year for Best Supporting Actress in Jojo Rabbit was. She’s pulls off this rare feat in a controversial film that split critics and audiences over its comic portrayal by director Waititi as Johansson’s ten-year-old son’s imaginary friend, Adolph Hitler, a character that was not in the film’s source novel. Star Roman Griffith Davis, who plays Johansson’s son, is the real-life son of cinematographer Ben Davis and writer-director Camille Griffin.