The actors who inspired Scarlett Johansson the most: “So emotionally pure and available”
Since the beginning of the 21st century, Scarlett Johansson has been at the centre of American entertainment and has duly inspired legions of young actors to get in front of the camera for the first time. A bastion of cinematic brilliance, Johansson status as a contemporary great has been assured for some time, although she continues to add to her already-excellent reputation.
A handful of child roles arrived in the 1990s before the New York City-born actor made her breakthrough in Sofia Coppola’s 2003 film Lost in Translation. From there, Johansson continued to cement her place in the pantheon of modern Hollywood icons with a series of equally commended performances.
Productions as varied as Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Black Widow, Her, Under the Skin and Marriage Story have all profited from Johansson’s fearless commitment to the acting profession. Although her talent is likely down to her own hard work, there are two actors who greatly inspired Johansson from an early age.
“I watched a lot of movies from the golden age of Hollywood and was an enormous Judy Garland fan,” Johansson once admitted in an interview with Vanity Fair. “She was so beautiful and vulnerable and was such an incredible actor to watch on film. Her performances all felt so emotionally pure and available.”
Garland was a true legend of Hollywood, a triple threat of genuine brilliance who appeared in classics like The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, A Star Is Born and Judgment at Nuremberg. Sadly, Garland struggled with physical and mental health and substance addiction and died from a barbiturate overdose in 1969 at the age of 47.
Still, the performance of the Minnesota-born actor would always live, particularly in the heart of a young Scarlett Johansson, who said that she would practice acting Garland’s role in Meet Me in St. Louis in the mirror until she made herself cry. Garland was not the only actor who left a deep impression on Johansson, though, as there is another (more contemporary) star who played a critical role in her early life.
“I loved Winona Ryder growing up,” Johansson pointed out in the Vanity Fair piece. “I think she similarly had that kind of openness and vulnerability. And, of course, her style was so great off-screen, too.” A modern icon of the screen, Ryder’s career is comprised of a series of brilliant performances in the likes of Beetlejuice, Little Woman, Girl, Interrupted, Black Swan and Stranger Things.
Interestingly, like Garland, Ryder was also born in Minnesota, showing that perhaps Johansson has a thing for actors from the Upper Midwest. At the top of Johansson’s list of Ryder performances is the timeless effort Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, which she admitted is one of her “favourite” movies of all time.
“She was beautiful in Edward Scissorhands,” Johansson said, “but she was also just such a teenager in it. She’s finding her independence; she’s kind of still a girl, but she’s becoming a young woman. It’s just such a great character.” Released in 1990, Edward Scissorhands was one of the films that set Ryder on her way to stardom and made a deep mark on the early career of Johansson.
Ryder and Garland embody two very different eras of American cinema, but together, they helped form one of Hollywood’s most enduring modern legends in the shape of Scarlett Johansson, who has herself gone on to play a significant role in inspiring countless other young aspiring actors.
