The 'Black Widow' star recalls having no freedom to choose her roles after continuously playing the object of male desire during the early part of her career.
- Dec 14, 2022
AceShowbiz - Scarlett Johansson didn't get to choose which direction she would like to take with her career in her teenage years. The actress recalled she got stuck in typecasting as an object of male desire after landing roles in the 2003 movies "Lost in Translation" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring".
The "Black Widow" star opened up about how she was "groomed" into becoming a "bombshell-type actor" during an appearance on "Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi". She noted, "It sort of was my transition into my adult career."
Johansson said during the podcast that she experienced "a really hard time doing 'Lost in Translation'." She continued, "I kind of became like an ingenue, sort of, and I just think that's part of - young girls like that are really objectified, and that's just a fact."
Reflecting on the lack of freedom she had at the time, she said, "So I think whatever box they're put into, it sort of sets you on this trajectory for how your life will go. Now, obviously women really are able more now to choose their own path."
"I did 'Lost in Translation' and 'Girl With the Pearl Earring' and by that point, I was 18, 19 and I was coming into my own womanhood and learning my own desirability and sexuality," she explained. "I think because of that trajectory that I had been sort of launched towards, I really got stuck in this. I was kind of being groomed, in a way, to be this what you call a bombshell-type actor. I was playing the other woman and the object of desire and I suddenly found myself cornered in this place. I couldn't get out of it."
The 38-year-old beauty quickly realized that choosing roles that centered around her appearance had a short life-span. "It would be easy to sit across from someone in that situation and go, 'This is working,' " she said of changing the course of her career. "But for that kind of bombshell, you know, that burns bright and quick and then it's done and you don't have opportunity beyond that."
The "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" star even admitted that her MCU character Black Widow was initially written as "very underdeveloped and over-sexualized." She, however, wouldn't miss the chance to work with the great people behind the "Iron Man" franchise.
"I got this incredible opportunity to work in the second 'Iron Man', which that part at the time was very underdeveloped and over-sexualized, but I wanted to form a relationship with Jon Favreau who I worked with a couple of times after that, who's an inspiration for me," she said. "And I also wanted to work with Kevin Feige, who's the head of Marvel, who I knew had a vision for this big picture."
Johansson cited Creative Artists Agency partner and co-chairman Bryan Lourd, Bozzi's spouse, as a person who helped her turn her own career around. "It was an interesting, weird conundrum to be in but it really came back to working at it and trying to carve a place in different projects and work in great ensembles," she shared.
Now that she has broken free from the box, the mother of two has an interesting career goal. "My ideal job is a corner office on the Disney lot," the two-time Oscar nominee said. "Like a little [bungalow]. That's what I want."
