Scarlett Johansson on Being Type-Cast as "Hyper-Sexualized": "It Wasn't Part of My Own Narrative"

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Jennifer Lopez, Lupita Nyong'o, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Awkwafina and Renée Zellweger joined for The Hollywood Reporter's annual Actress Roundtable.

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00:00I'm curious how important it is for all of you to sort of shift what people expect

00:09from you based on your choices.

00:10It's so different now.

00:12The climate is so different now.

00:14There's so many wonderful opportunities for women of every age to play all different types

00:21of people.

00:23I feel when I was working in my early 20s and even like my late teens, early 20s, I felt

00:34that I sort of got somehow typecast as I was like very kind of hypersexualized, which was

00:44I guess at the time seemed okay to everyone.

00:48It was another time.

00:50Even though it wasn't part of my own narrative, it was kind of crafted for me by probably

00:55a bunch of dudes in the industry.

00:57And I guess that worked then, but it was really difficult for me to try to figure out how to

01:03get out of being an ingenue or the other woman because it was never anything that I had intended.

01:10I had been working since I was eight years old and certainly that was never like a goal

01:13of mine.

01:14I sort of had to kind of shake it up a little bit because I just couldn't seem to, I just

01:21didn't want to work on stuff that I like knew how to do and knew I could do it.

01:26And it was like, what is this?

01:29I remember thinking at the time like maybe I need a different job in this industry that

01:34would sort of be more fulfilling because there seemed like there was just nowhere to go.

01:40And so I actually had the opportunity to do a play, to do an Arthur Miller play on Broadway,

01:48and it totally reset my whole way of thinking about how I could work and what the different

01:58kind of opportunities that could be available to me.

02:01And it's amazing how theater is limitless and it just felt so, even though it was terrifying,

02:10it felt it was liberating because I actually felt that every night I had the opportunity

02:17to change the narrative and I had, as Lupita had said earlier, you have control of your own

02:23kind of fate on stage to some degree and you're in charge of your own, of your own destiny

02:29up there.

02:35You have two very different films that have come out.

02:38Is there one that was sort of more intimidating for you than the other?

02:41I don't know if intimidated is really the right word exactly.

02:44I think both of those films, even though they're really different, the thing they do have in

02:48common is that the scripts were like beautiful little gems, both scripts and Laura read, obviously,

02:54Marriage Story and it was such a, it was incredible.

02:57I mean, it was just every, I think what people that have seen it don't necessarily realize

03:03is that every hesitation and every unfinished sentence is all scripted and no one's really,

03:10you know, it's the words of the words and, you know, you have to stick to that.

03:14It was there.

03:15It's all right there and you, and he's, he's a real stickler about that, you know, which

03:18is fine.

03:19But, you know, you, you have to, you, you have this kind of structure and, and, and then

03:27you figure it out.

03:29It was challenging at, at times just because, you know, Noah's relentless and he works, you

03:37know, till like to exhaustion.

03:39I've never really been able to have that experience just burning film like that.

03:43It's something you do when you do theater because you, you know, you just keep, it's one of

03:47the beautiful things about doing theater is that you get that chance over and over again

03:51to figure it out and you do what you figure it out, you know, every night and it's so exciting

03:56because you have, you know, you surprise yourself all the time and you're stuck with this, you

04:01know, with this text.

04:03And that's kind of the experience that I certainly and Laura had too is, you know, you're, you

04:09had all this, all this opera, this opportunity to just try it all out and, and it was, it

04:17was challenging, but it also, it kind of keep coming back to, okay, I can't stray from this.

04:24So I, I'm, I'm going to, you know, make these discoveries within this kind of con, the confines

04:29of this text.

04:30It was, it was not, I wouldn't say intimidating, but it was, it was challenging, definitely.

04:35I was intimidated when I read your monologue and watched you tirelessly learning it.

04:42Fumble through it.

04:43No, my God, no.

04:45And makeup and hair and we would run lines and I would listen to you memorizing it and

04:51take one was flawless.

04:56This human being opening her heart and telling this entire story, not one word missed.

05:01I was just mesmerized.

05:03It was amazing to watch you do that.

05:05All the actors were hand shy when Noah walked past.

05:07Yeah.

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Scarlett Johansson on Being Type-Cast as "Hyper-Sexualized": "It Wasn't Part of My Own Narrative" | Actress Roundtable

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