Scarlett Johansson on the one thing she “constantly struggles” with
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget how young an actor Scarlett Johansson still is because it feels like she’s been around the movie industry for such a long time. After all, for the last three decades or so, the New York-born actor has been making waves in the entertainment world with considerable performances in a number of widely differing roles.
After making early appearances in the likes of The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World, Johansson established herself as a significant player in the film circuit with a phenomenal appearance in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. She followed up with further acclaimed roles in Match Point, The Prestige, Her, Under the Skin and Marriage Story.
Back in 2003, Johansson spoke with Charlie Rose about the pressures of being an actor. Rose asked just what practice it is that makes Johansson such a talent, but she was initially reticent in answering, noting, “It’s hard when you’re presenting with ‘How’d you get so good’ because I don’t think that.”
After joking about being a “self-deprecating woe-is-me actor”, Johansson went on to explain that she “constantly struggles” with her performances, saying, “I still see scenes in films that I’ve done and go, ‘God, why did I make that choice?’ or ‘Why did they use that take?’ and all that.”
Still, those experiences are precisely what make Johansson assess her performances and ultimately what makes them better, even though that brings its own unique sense of pressure to the job. “The more films that you make that are successful, the more there is a certain pressure on you to keep making great films and keep being fantastic in them,” the actor said.
“That’s the sort of scary thing,” she said. By the same line of reasoning, Johansson said that an actor’s early career can be defined by the freedom from such expectations. “When you’re first starting out,” she continued. “You want to be amazing, and you want to get noticed. There’s a certain drive you have.”
For Johansson, there is a “certain jaded quality that comes with success and recognition”. But because of that admission, she has continued to learn from each film for the last two decades since making such a statement, and it’s fair to say that that method has more than paid off, as proven by her fantastic and varied movie roles.
“Of course, I’m constantly learning,” the actor added. “Every experience I have working on and off set. But I constantly struggle with becoming jaded or whether I’m able to step outside of what I’m doing and kind of have a look in. That tunnel vision gets narrower and narrower the more you work.”
