The pivotal acting advice Laurence Fishburne gave Scarlett Johansson
Once the tough climb into Hollywood is complete, those who make it are left with another difficult task: deciding what kind of star they want to be. It’s a privileged point to be at and one that generations of aspiring actors dream about being faced with. To have the opportunity to be selective about what path they go down is a thing only a select lucky few have, but reaching that point led to a complete career reconsideration for Scarlett Johansson.
For many people, that question comes a long way into their career. For some, no one ever tells them that there is a decision to be made, leading to mish-mash careers of huge variety that lack a sense of purpose or an enduring upward trajectory. Luckily for Johansson, who grew up around creatives and got her start in the film world as a child.
At age nine, she was cast in Just Cause, a crime thriller flick alongside Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. With the young actor on set, the two big leagues took her under their wing, with Fishburne especially passing down some sage wisdom.
Part of that included letting Johannson in on the vital knowledge that a performer must make a choice about what kind of figure they want to be. He asked her if she wanted to be an actor or be a star. Still only a child, she said she wanted to be both.
“‘Well, that’s something you’re going to have to decide when you get older,’ he said to me,” she recalled to Venice magazine. It served her well, as she continued, “It was good advice because it still keeps my head straight when I talk about that. I’m in this to build a career.”
That balance between wanting to be a serious and respected actor and also wanting to be a success is seen throughout Johansson’s career. She’s taken on roles in box office hits that might not be the most high-brow pictures, allowing her to become one of the best-known and highest-paid actors around. But throughout her work, she’s also taken risks and said yes to more artistic projects or films she’s clearly passionate about.
She worked with Sofia Coppola early on in both of their careers, when Johansson was still a teenager, and Coppola was only just getting to grips with making full-length features and finding her own identity outside of her father’s shadow. She took on the dorky role of Rebecca in Ghost World to have fun on a 2000s indie flick. She said yes to being merely the voice of Spike Jonze’s AI woman in his strange yet moving film Her.
It would have been very easy for Johansson to simply be the beautiful leading lady. She could have built a successful career out of being the star in a series of romantic comedies or the damsel in action films or any other typical role that would have guaranteed her success. But as she harked back to the decision Fishburne laid out to her as a child, she always wanted to be an actor and an artist too, leading to a varied and lengthy career she can be proud of.
