Actors Studio - Scarlett Johansson

it may not have escaped your notice that i'm wearing my right arm in a fashionable sling this is a result of a sunny afternoon in bridgehampton which concluded with me emerging from the pool after an hour of swimming laps slipping on the wet deck and both dislocating and fracturing my elbow thanks to the intervention of the world's most illustrious orthopedic trauma surgeon dr david helfett i was admitted to the world's most famous orthopedic hospital new york's hospital for special surgery as i was wheeled into the operating room i explained that i had to be here today no matter what doctor alfred promised that i would be and here i am four days after a three and a half hour surgery thanks to the miracles of modern medicine and dr halphet [Applause] tonight's guest is in the midst of a meteoric career that began when she was 14 in robert redford's the horse whisperer and continued in an astonishing variety of roles from ghost world to lost in translation for which he received a golden globe nomination and won the british academy award for best leading actress in a motion picture girl with a pearl earring which earned her a second golden globe nomination and a second british academy award nomination match point vicki christina barcelona iron man 2 the avengers under the skin her captain america the winter soldier lucy avengers age of ultron captain america civil war ghost in the shell and rough night you will find her star on the hollywood walk of fame and i'm happy to say that tonight you will find her here on our stage the actor's studio is very proud to welcome scarlett johansson [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] and we'll start as is our custom at the beginning where were you born i was born in a lennox hill hospital here in new york city what is your father's name karsten johansen where was he born he was born in copenhagen what is your mother's name melanie sloan where was she born my mother was born in the bronx we know that you are of danish lineage on your father's side what did your maternal side contribute my mother is ashkenazi jew for reasons that are unscientific and anecdotal a great many of our guests over the past 23 years have grown up with parents of differing faiths the majority of them have been one christian and one jewish parent was that the case with you my father is fanatically atheist um my mother is sort of i guess agnostic or spiritual or whatever but was raised in somewhat cultural jewish household in a way was either faith dominant in your home i'd say the jewish jewish side of my family was more um you know it was more colorful it was more present and that was probably also because i had a very close relationship with my grandmother um who again was an atheist but she was very connected to you know her people in a cultural way i've read that your grandmother had a favorite song that she would sing at family gatherings what was it it was summertime from porgy and bess that song has a dear place in my heart we are tonight on the brink of summer do you think our students could hear just say four bars i can't i can't i'm so nervous um [Music] summertime and living is easy fish are jumping and the cotton is high oh your daddy's rich and your mommy's good looking so hush little baby don't you cry thank you were movies and television an important part of your early life yes my mother's total cinephile so we watched a lot of movies and and some tv growing up i really used to love trashy talk shows i was a big fan of jerry springer um i watched a lot of nick at night so i watched a lot of i love lucy i mean tons of it um i love lucy and all mary tyler moore show and i love taxi and rhoda and all those shows i loved them growing up um so television actually was important to me it's funny i don't think about it that way i was too stuck on jerry springer but one of the questions i've asked every guest for the past 23 years is how did the first creative spark ignite in you when did you begin acting i performed a lot when i was really little i mean even three years old i was kind of like a ham i just really loved entertaining my family and whoever else was around you've recalled someone said that we were like the cute little johansson family and my mom should take us to a commercial agency did your mother follow up on the suggestion she did we all went on this you know audition or whatever this casting and uh the only person they wanted was my older brother adrian um which i guess nobody else cared about i was totally devastated i remember standing outside of the hot and crusty bakery and remember my mom's saying well this is a lot of work you know is this something you really want to do and i i did i wanted to do it i wanted to try it so she got i had some head shots made and a little resume that said you know skills you know uh i don't know can semi ice skate whatever uh loves to sing or whatever and i signed with the management company and i started auditioning now a question that will attract the attention of our students here at the actors studio drama school of pace university at the age of seven you began i believe a formal study of acting where would that have been i attended the lee strasbourg theater institute i was in the children's program for about a year they invited me to do the young adult program um but i was of course i don't know i was nine or something so i stayed in that young adult class for quite a while and my teacher bill balzac who still teaches there um come whenever i do a play he'll always bring the class he's working with at the time how would strasberg institute teach acting to such a young person firstly just having a scene partner and understanding what it means to work with one another was a was a big part of the foundation just the improvisational work acting opposite another person and being able to hold what they gave you and give them something that give and take was was greatly encouraged um and requires obviously a lot of patience and compassion and and mindfulness and which are all wonderful things to teach children anyway but it is it's a it's it really just it's the same foundation you just you're just uh a little bit shorter do you think any of that has stuck to you i would never describe myself as a method actor per se but i have developed my own kind of method and i think being able to draw from my own emotional space inside me and and be able to have compassion for myself in a way and the experiences that i have had and and you use those those experiences and those emotions to you know to really adapt to any kind of uh situation or environment that has been something that i carry with me um and have always employed and kind of gone back to your mother was managing your career she was managing my career she really helped me find my voice as an artist and also protected me because of course when young working at such a young age you know you you don't have any ally on your side you really need your parent to be there or guardian to be there to make sure that you're being appropriately treated and getting your schooling and all that so she was she was wonderful at that filmmakers and audiences became aware of you to put it mildly when you appeared in robert redford's the horse whisperer how old were you when you were in the movie i was 12. it was a completely transformative experience i started to understand my job while i was making that film i didn't start to understand naturalism really until until the horse whisperer and know exactly what it meant and what it meant to actually feel okay letting go how old were you when your parents divorced i was 13. my mother moved to california at that time and i stayed in new york with my twin brother hunter and my mom was far away and so i would see her when i was working but um you know i didn't have a particularly close relationship with her when i wasn't working when you say you didn't have a close relationship with her what can you well i think it was you know i mean i was 13 of course so that in itself is complicated i felt like a grown-up i guess at that age 13. i kind of was sort of taking care of my self in some ways but then on the other hand in this weird dichotomy i also had she was also managing me and taking total care of me in another way so it was it was confusing are you still confused by that i had a lot of trauma and um a lot of there was a lot of movement in my family and my emotional life um you know i had to kind of grow up sort of fast what do you mean by trauma well you know i mean my parents separating they had a went by the time my twin brother and i came around i think my parents marriage was it had a lot of strain you know we were living on uh welfare we were on food stamps my parents were raising four kids in a low income household in manhattan so it was it was there was a lot you lived on welfare yeah yeah i lived in welfare um and you know i think my mom tried to be as much of a buffer as possible with that experience but you know i it's there's no kind of handbook to how you do that stuff and i think it was you know it was just a lot i think it became clear to me early on when i was making that film that i really needed to fall in love with this person in 2003 you received a golden globe nomination and won the british academy award for best leading actress in a motion picture for your portrayal of charlotte in lost in translation [Music] a great role how did that come to you sophia was a big fan of manny and lo which is so funny she approached me my representative at the time we met and she said she had written this script for with me in mind and bill in mind and uh sounded good to me groundhog day is still one of my favorite movies ever for the youngest of our students who may not have seen the film who directed it sophia coppola directed it sophia was nominated for an academy award as the movie's director and was she won an oscar for the screenplay tell us about working with her on this film she was having the charlotte experience in some way you know she has a kind of a whimsy about her um and she's very yeah she would describe her was very kind of placid and dreamlike in a way um and i'm not you know i'm i want to know what's the meat of this thing let's get dirty what's going on here um you know i i like i like to get dirty with things i felt when i was making that film in some ways kind of isolated from the experience oh so i think because i was 17 so you pretty much feel isolated from every experience at that time um and you know bill of course as you know has a very big personality right um to say the very least and you know sophia was very enamored with of course bill at that time as were we all plus i was in tokyo and working 16 hour days and you know i graduated high school and i was like what am i doing you know i didn't kind of know what was up and what was down at the time the movie was full of revelations sophia's work yours bill murray's the work of all three of you is in evidence in this wonderful scene i just don't know what i'm supposed to be you know i tried being a writer but i hate what i write and i try taking pictures but they're so mediocre you know and every girl goes through a photography phase you know like horses you know take uh dumb pictures of your feet you'll figure that out and i'm not worried about you keep writing [Music] i'm so mean means okay what's it like to work with that guy i think it became clear to me early on when i was making that film that i really needed to fall in love with this person and i of course and i and i did um fall in love with bob sophia saves one of her most powerful strokes for the end of the movie when bill murray's character is in the limo leaving tokyo to return to america and he has said goodbye to charlotte these spies are alone on a crowded street what happens he comes out of the car and he runs after me and grabs me and whispers into my ear were those whispered words in the script no did bill improvise the whisper he did can you tell us what he whispered do you really want to know more than you know i don't think you do would i be disillusioned would you i won't know until you tell me i neither will bell we can both agree on that i think so one of the exercises taught at the active studio drama school and by my teacher stella adler long ago to me involves studying a painting taking from it the scene and character we perceive in it and making it three-dimensional which is precisely what the creators of girl with a pearl earring did what drew you to the role of the subject of one of ramirez's most famous paintings the script the script was incredible for that and the book did you do a lot of research for the film is it another time different kinds of people we shot that film in luxembourg everything we were wearing everything we were handling was really of that time we don't see the actual painting until the last frame of the film but the resemblance is stunning between you and your performance and that very famous painting what was your girl with the pearl earring thinking as she looked back over her shoulder at the artist do you remember i do remember it was that that feeling longing for so many things in 2005 you received another golden globe nomination for your portrayal of the irresistible and doomed nola in woody allen's match point how did that role come to you you know i've actually made a career out of being the second choice it's worked out pretty good but um i got a sudden phone call like the call of a lifetime you know hey uh woody uh uh another actor had dropped out of matchpoint for i don't know some conflict and either was personal or scheduling or whatever and um woody would like to have the script delivered to you tonight you have to read it and decide if you want to make this film because they're shooting it in london in whatever four weeks or something what you know i mean this is this is the moment this is my woody allen moment you're the one i waited for it just came like that i mean how is it even possible i think i was about 19 at the time and uh script came manila envelope person waited outside my room i read it and it had a letter from woody and it said something like oh you really admired your work and then at the end of it it said something like if you respond to the material great if not you know we'll find something else at some point i was like i didn't even you know i probably thumbed through it yes you know i'll take it four weeks later i was suddenly in london and there he was it was woody allen and uh yeah it was the start of something what did you see in nola that made you want to play her i liked the turn obviously she becomes a liability of course for jonathan's character but you know she just can't get a break i like that there's a no [ __ ] quality to her was there anything in you that found its way into the character there's a particular scene where my character catches jonathan's character out outside of i don't know if it's outside of work or whatever right and i'm absolutely furious with him i mean i'm desperate he hasn't called it was the first time that i was able to really be hysterical i don't think i'd ever played a person that was you mean hysterical on film yeah i don't think so it was like i found a whole new oh wow it can be hysterical woody is frequently described as a director of very few words did he speak to you very much as you shot or did he you mean about my character yes about the role about the moment about the scene no he doesn't have too much interest in that stuff uh but he talks a lot about food dinner tonight oh any old thing any old thing yeah loves to talk about sex people's relationships neurotic behaviors wonton soup all kinds of stuff here's an example of what woody and scarlett created together in match point she wants to marry you i don't think her mother would approve of that either no no it's different i don't buy into eleanor and she knows it but you are being groomed you mark my words they almost died when they thought that chloe had run off with some guy that ran a gastropub in the city but you're gonna do very well for yourself unless you blow it and how am i going to blow it by making a pass at me what makes you think that's gonna happen men always seem to wonder they think i'd be something very special and are you well no one's ever asked for their money back [Applause] i've been saving the world from the forces of evil for so long that um for which i would like to thank you on behalf of the world yes my pleasure one year after match point you reunited with woody for scoop then two years later came the very successful vicky christina barcelona [Applause] in an interview before the shoot when woody's long-standing policy precluded any revelation of the story you said vicki christina barcelona is not a romantic comedy it's a sort of slice of life well there may be some romance in the air as this clip reveals that is a major understatement you're very hard to please yeah well i am famous for my intolerance here what do you want in life besides a man with the right shirts um i don't know i know i'm not gonna settle do i find what i'm looking for which is what something else i want something different something more some sort of um counter-intuitive love meaning meaning no i don't know what i want i only know what i don't want hey if you don't start undressing me soon this is gonna turn into a panel discussion who is that man that is mr javier bardem tell us about working with javier bardem javier bardem is the gentlest soul i've ever seen which is so funny because he plays such a lothario in this and he's so welcome but it's it was so against his nature he had such a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he could be such a latch you know and what he kept saying just it's too beautiful just you know you want to [ __ ] him go ahead just go for it in the course of the film pretty much everyone gets more or less involved with everyone else well you shrug but some of us don't have your sophisticated experiences among other things you get to make love with penelope cruz she eventually winds up in bed with both you and him she's spicy we're all spicy she is spicy she is totally present completely committed spicy fiery gorgeous just delicious two years after the release of vicki cristina barcelona you did what major movie stars promise they'll do one day and usually don't namely you want to work on the broadway stage and what arthur miller's view from the bridge my wife and i saw you in the play and we cheered the night as you won your tony what was that night like for you more than anything i was so happy to be embraced by the broadway community in that way that to me was what was so touching about it i read an interview in which you said that the lesson you took from a view from the bridge was that in the future you would be more demanding of yourself and of the choices that you made waiting as long as necessary for something that challenged and excited true yes subsequently you said waiting for the right thing has worked for me would i be correct in assuming that the right thing can be summed up in one word the word is marvel playing a superhero in a blockbuster film based on a comic book series would seem to be a quantum leap in a new direction for you how did the role of natasha come to you i met with john favreau we had a great meeting and then you know he cast somebody else i was so disappointed but as fate would have it a couple whatever a month later or something like that there i was sitting across from john favreau and he was like remember when i didn't give you that part yeah i kind of need a favor you know gonna think i was really a favor but he you know he was like let's let's do this would you still be interested is it i don't hold a grudge you know um and it was it was totally the scope of production i never worked on before the physical part of it was something that i had never done before uh just the choreography the fighting the tr all of it and of course working with robert downey was something i never gotten the chance to do before so you've described the first time you saw the cat suit as a bit of a freak out moment why what do you mean why look at that thing i mean why i mean i think i'd look darling i mean i have to be honest no seriously i agree i think you would also look darling in it when's my arm that was your own heels yeah i mean who wants to get into something like that you just think oh god really couldn't it have like i don't know some sort of a little like peplum skirt or something like that i mean this thing is so like there you are but it it also was everything it represented i mean the character was so beloved obviously she's kind of the first marvel super heroine you know she's an iconic character and i you know how people were going to take that the fact that i the part had been recast you maybe they'd already accepted the other actor as that partner you know what the hell was i doing in this kind of franchise so it was daunting how does one train to become a superhero especially in that company of superheroes so much training how long i've been saving the world from the forces of evil for so long that um for which i would like to thank you on behalf of the world yeah yes my pleasure um any time when i did ironman too i don't think i'd ever you know i mean i had never been to the gym once uh ever it was like it was just unbelievable and i had to transform myself in like a period of five weeks so just everything changed and hurt um you know you know the recovery was like i just think i was sore for about five months i spent tons of time with the stunt department i knew the stunt department way better than anybody else on set and you know you make it happen you just you do it you take a step in the then the other foot follows were you eager to take the next step in your voyage with the avengers yeah i was i was excited that people liked portrayal and that there weren't riots in the street and i could play the character again who wrote and directed the avengers josh sweden tell us about working with him he is extremely involved um he loves working with actors he's very very sensitive hyper sensitive he comes to the table with a lot of ideas and he deeply cares you were working with a virtual staff company by now yeah i mean none of us knew how the hell we all got there which was you know so funny i mean between me and ruffalo and renner and we're like what are we all doing here i mean we're this isn't our kind of bag you know but yeah somehow this group of misfits got to get misfit actors somehow these group of character actors were now suddenly playing all these iconic super and that's i think what so works for the marvel casting process it just how long was the shoot about five and a half months and where was it shot we shot that in albuquerque new mexico what's the experience working with computer generated images it's kind of like a pantomime i guess no way with a tennis ball yeah on a stick explain the tennis ball to the students well of course you know oftentimes the tennis ball is a marker and it's usually on like a c-stand you know so it'll represent the height of something it could be a person or a building or an alien zombie stare at the tennis ball react to the tennis ball yeah i don't know that i'd say i'm used to it but it's just look at the results you spoke of being drawn to natasha because she possesses not only superpowers but a genuine reliable humanity here in the midst of the exciting bedlam of the avengers is a very human moment between natasha and the movie's arch villain before i worked for shield i uh well i made a name for myself i have a very specific skill set i didn't care who i used it for or on i got on shield's radar in a bad way [Music] agent barton was sent to kill me he made a different call and what will you do a five hour to spare him not let you out no but i like this your world in the balance and you bargained for one man regimes fall every day i tend not to weep over that i'm russian where i was and we'll tell you now it's really not that complicated but i got red in my ledger i'd like to wipe it out are there more avenger films on the horizon there's two there's one the one that we're shooting now the infinity war and then the rest of the infant anymore and those are two those are two films yeah what's so great about this phone what i love about it it really pushes it almost too unforgivable as we meet tonight rough night is opening on screens across america and around the world what can you tell us about the story i think it's really a story about friendship i mean of course we have a bachelorette party that goes terribly wrong and kill a male stripper and then decide to try different ways of disposing of his body rough night is described as an often hilarious comedy on the face of it it doesn't sound like obvious comedic material how does it walk this very fine line they kill somebody for heaven's sake oh it was an accident so you say that's what's so great about this phone when i love about it it really pushes it almost too unforgivable right then you know we kind how do you like playing comedy i loved it i mean i look at the girls i'm working with you know i working with kate mckinnon working with julian bell lana glazer zoe kravitz i mean you know those girls are such brilliant brilliant comedians and it was i learned a lot watching them who wrote rough night paul w downs and lucia and yellow given the subject of the movie in the cast do you think that the fact that it was co-written and directed by a woman is significant well i guess there hasn't been an r rated comedy directed by a woman in 20 years which is kind of crazy because there's so many funny women that exist in a very r-rated mind frame and i know a lot of them but um yeah it's it's pretty significant this was an ensemble piece definitely a classic ensemble piece yes i had been a fan of kate mckinnon's for a long time she's just an animal her brain is remarkable i mean the stuff that she comes up with is just outrageous and so deep dark twisted uh she is not afraid to go really far in one direction and be really embarrassing or really wrong this is what she said about you scarlett johansson is a great actress really funny she improvises really funny stuff and it's rare to find the two rolled into one we did a lot of improvisation which is actually something that i'm normally kind of terrified of i never have really been a improv act i think that's a skill you could develop but it was a safe environment this clip will give you an idea of some of the surprises that await you in very rough and yes very funny night [Applause] oh god there's only one cups left oh i can't do is too much pressure you know focus if we win this we will be the only girls to ever win the halloween tournament for womankind stop making me horny and shoot [Music] [Applause] [Applause] what are all these you know all these parts that make up this human body that were so it was so interesting that that was the first and actually really i feel so thankful that that was the first time that i ever had to do something where i was nude like that we begin our classroom session with the questionnaire that was asked by the greatest host of all time bernard pivo and i will ask you please scarlett what is your favorite word yummy what is your least favorite word panties what turns you on curiosity what turns you off entitlement what sound or noise do you love my daughter laughing what sound or noise do you hate a jackhammer what is your favorite curse word what profession other than your own would you like to attempt i probably would have liked to have been a counselor of some kind or therapist of some kind what profession would you absolutely not like to undertake ever an exterminator finally scarlett if heaven exists what would you like to hear god say when you arrive at the pearly gates it's going to be okay here are the students and so let us begin the classroom session good evening my name is tatiana i'm a rising third year actor i had a question about an aspect of your work on under the skin i understand that you had some reservations about the nudity required for the role and i just wanted to ask you as a woman you know how you navigate when you decide to accept roles that require nudity you know i think in under the skin the nudity was so it was so important to the characters awakening um that it didn't you know also working with jonathan glaser and i obviously was very respectful but we both agreed that it was an important part of that of telling that character's story what was interesting about it was you know when you're standing naked in front of a mirror you start to realize gosh i'm so like look at i'm so self-conscious about all these things right when we think about but then in this character obviously i had to play a character that had no consciousness of you know she has no preconceived idea of her body or judgment or anything really right she's another species so she's just looking at this body like wow look at all these parts you know what i mean look at all look at my cuticles look at my eyelashes and all this stuff and i have all these what are all these toes what are all these you know all these parts that make up this human body that were so it was so interesting that that was the first and actually really i feel so thankful that that was the first time that i ever had to do something where i was nude like that because it gave me a completely different perspective uh than had it been you know some like whatever like salacious thing or i think in the end you'd have to respect yourself and your own thoughts about it and if it's something that i felt moved the characters it was okay for me is it my favorite thing to do no but but it was it was an interesting experiment you know you know where your boundaries are i think you know what the good kind of uncomfortable is and the not good and the bad uncomfortable so i think you just have to go with your gut on that thank you hello miss johansen i'm maria cristina pimiento i just graduated from the program i want to thank you for being so real so truthful and aware thank you my question is what is your definition for success definition of success means so many different things to different people for me i feel like i've had success when i've done my best job at that very particular given moment doesn't necessarily mean that i won't wake up when the night demons come at 2 am and go oh damn it i should have tried that other reading god i mean that always happens but i think when i feel okay this is this is all i have to give i gave it all i thought of all the things i could think of right now i think i'm good okay doesn't always mean that it ends up so successful but personally it feels like okay i'm happy with that you know if i was brave and i try i push myself out of my comfort zone and i maybe went in a direction went in a couple of different directions that felt something out i carved something out i just made a discovery i felt okay that was that was a successful moment i do it moment to moment you know and i think that part of having success is taking risks right there's that whole risk reward thing but you just don't know you're always going to lose something right when you gain something you lose something for better or worse i've never found that i've ever had great success with things i didn't take a risk on um so i think just feeling okay with failing has led me to find success to learn more about inside the active studio go to bravotv.com

Channel: Katharine Clifton

Views: 306,607

Keywords: scarlett johansson, avengers, lost in translation, bill murray, robert downey jr, tony, profile, vicky christina barcelona, her, black widow

Id: X-2_9EIyM1I

Length: 42min 57sec (2577 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020