Sam Amico
It’s no accident that actress Scarlett Johansson used to often plays roles that may have been considered a bit, well, sultry. But anyone who follows Johansson knows she is more talented than just that. So she is glad she escaped being pigeonholed into such roles, she indicated.
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“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 told The Hollywood Reporter.
“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.”
Trying to escape those roles is one reason she joined the cast of the Marvel films, she told THR. One thing she didn’t want to do is stay where she was as an actress forever.
Scarlett Johansson in Marvel’s Black Widow
“It would be easy to sit across from someone in that situation and go, ‘This is working,'” she said. “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. 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.”
Johansson, 38, made her Marvel Cinematic debut as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 in 2010. It’s been a shift to dramatic roles since.
“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.”
She is next set to co-star with Channing Tatum in Project Artemis, a $100-million movie centered on NASA. Johansson also co-produces the film.
