Scarlett Johansson Rewatches The Avengers, Lost in Translation & More | Vanity Fair

It's so brutal. But it's also, it makes me laugh. Yeah, I mean, I think even on the, oh, hold on, I just have to go grab the phone one second. Hello? I'm sorry? Oh, yes, great. Thank you. Sorry, where were we? We were talking about how hilarious Marriage Story is. Hi everyone, I'm Scarlett Johansson, and today we'll be watching some scenes from throughout my career. My worst nightmares have begun. And. How the hell did we get so far behind him? I don't know, it's just great. Jesus. Oh, yay. Oh my God, look at this. Wowsville, authentic 50s diner. Since when were there mini malls in the 1950s? That 15-year-old version of me is the same 15-year-old version of me and living inside my 40-year-old body. I don't think I've seen this film in, I mean, it's been legit like 20-something years. I have to say that out of all of the films that I've done, other than probably some of the Marvel films I've done, or Avengers, obviously very meaningful to a wide audience of people, but I have to say, I Get Ghost Brawled is my favorite movie a lot. Whenever I hear that, I know that I'm talking to somebody who's like a real cinephile, probably a fan of either Daniel Klaus or Terry Zwaikoff or both. And yeah, it's just, it always makes me happy. It was such a, I loved making this movie. It was, you know, it was 15. Everything was awesome. Hey, check out the awesome 50s hairdo on our waiter. Hi, my name is Alan, and I'll be your waiter this afternoon. Hi, Al. Can we call you Weird Al? I'd imagine so. I think at the time, you know, being a 15-year-old working actor, teenage slasher movies were really popular, and I was not a fan of teenage slasher movies. Not that there's anything wrong with those, just wasn't my thing. It was rare to be offered something that was a film that I would go and see. And so when I read the script for Ghost World, it just felt very authentic to, you know, just the dialogue that I was having with my friends. It felt quirky and interesting and different. And I loved Crumb, which was a film that Terry Zweigoff had made, and I was unusual, you know. It was not what was kind of happening for an actor my age. Interrogation, this moron is giving me everything. I'm trying to remember what the rehearsal process was for this scene. I mean, a lot of this fight, like, I couldn't perform because I'm tied to a chair. And it's actually, like, really burdensome. The incomparable Heidi Moneymaker, who is my stunt double for all of the Avengers films, and she is an incredible athlete, amazing performer. She knows me so well. She knows my capabilities so well because we've worked together since I was, you know, in Iron Man 2, I was like 23 or 24 for a decade of time. We, together, created Black Widow and her style and her gait and her, you know, all of the flourishes that come with her fight style and stuff like that. And so probably a lot of this chair sequence is the stunt team has done this, like, amazing previs, and then you would work out what pieces that you would be able to be capable of doing and what pieces the stunt performer would be doing. And, you know, and it kind of becomes, like, a marriage of those two things. I do remember how challenging it was to learn the, like, four and a half seconds of Russian. That, to me, probably was more difficult than the stunt, if that makes any sense. It was, like, mental, mental. Yeah, that part was, I was way more stressed about the Russian than the chair. When we made the first Avengers, none of us knew what the potential of this, the Avengers, particularly, would be. Like, Iron Man was massively successful. It was huge. It built the studio of Marvel. And then Iron Man 2 was also very successful. There was Thor, and that character felt like was from a completely different universe, in a way. I mean, obviously, there's a whole MCU, but it was such a different tone of the Iron Man movies. And then, of course, Captain America had its whole own identity, as well. And then, when you added the characters all together, plus Hulk and, you know, Hawkeye, and, you know, it just felt like a big mess, I mean, to be honest. And it just, even on the set, it felt crazy, because we all looked insane. It was like, what are we doing, you know? I mean, I don't think anybody really knew if it was gonna work or not. I'm sure Kevin Feige knew it was gonna work. Joss Whedon knew it was gonna work, but the cast, it was like a sort of, it was blind faith, basically, that we all had in Joss and in Kevin Feige. I remember the scene where we all are in that sort of, like right in front of Grand Central, it was like that big scene that, you know, you see the 360 of all the characters together. That was the moment where all of us were like, I think this is maybe gonna work. It felt powerful. And we were like, oh, we actually all, like when we watched the playback, it was, it looked really cool, but so much of it didn't feel very cool when we were shooting it. We were so young, and we were having such a great time and such a great group of actors, and we all became such good friends. I have great memories of shooting it. It was just a blast. It's like a whole family for us, you know? We've gone through all personally, so many changes and ups and downs and in and outs and everything else. And, you know, we're kind of like come out the other side, a little bruised and battered, but you know, but together, united. I think this was maybe the last scene that we shot. It was certainly a scene that we stole, which I just realized because I saw some of the extras in the background on the right side being like, look what's going on over there. I guess it was a time where you couldn't like paint those people out. I've seen a lot of different videos where people have like heightened volume, or I don't know, whatever you do to try to fill in the blanks of like missing audio. I guarantee you whatever was said in reality is probably much less magical than what is in your mind. And so I always encourage people to like not dig too deep because I think it's the mystery of what is exchanged there that is the magic of the film and what Sophia intended in the film. Nothing is scripted. I was so young when I made this movie, I was 17 years old and I was very much having a parallel experience to the character because I was in Tokyo far away from anything familiar. And I was working like night and day and day and night and very disoriented and just felt, I think alone in some parts of the experience. I think in this moment, it's what it looks like to me and what it makes me remember about it, I think is that it was sort of an improvised thing. And like, I'd experienced so much making this film as a young woman that I probably felt pretty kind of overwhelmed and just sort of like open to whatever this exchange was gonna be since nothing was scripted. But I guess that's why it works. Actually totally forgot that we kissed in this movie. So I was like, oh wow, I forgot that that happened. I haven't seen this film in so long. It's rare to like rewatch stuff. I guess if it was on, I would like probably stop and watch it for a while. It's so hard for me to have perspective on the work that I've done because it's such a like specific time and place captured on film. And it's one of the great things about the art form is it's this like performance is like frozen in time. You know, it's not like theater, which is much more like ephemeral. You know, it's like, this is kind of the way that Sophia saw it. And then the performance that she edited was, you know, the one that she like, you know, I think desire or outcome for the character. And so I always look at the movies that I've done in the past and I'm sure I probably would do the same for this film, even though it was a bajillion years ago. I always am like, oh, you know, there was like a different take that I preferred or I actually will be like, oh, I could have, I know what that line means now. You know, it was like not as meaningful then or something like that. So it's hard for me to watch things without being, I try not to be too critical, especially because, you know, it is what it is, but it's like, I'll go back in my mind and review my own performance and remember what I thought I was, what was working then. And then I think what I would do differently if I could do it again. What's it like to be alive in that room? What do you mean? What do you, tell me, tell me everything that's going through your mind. Tell me everything you're thinking. The recording process was pretty extensive. That's extensive, not expensive. No, it probably was also expensive, but because we spent so much time in the recording studio. I recorded some of this with Alone. I like in a, basically there was kind of a box that was created for the Samantha character that the actor used on set. And so that box was brought into the recording studio. It was kind of like being in a phone booth, I would say, inside of, I think it was just also to create the atmosphere of like being in this contained thing because in fact, you don't really need to be inside a sound booth, inside a sound booth. You know what I mean? It was like a Spike thing. I don't know, he had some affinity for this little like prison box thing, but it actually did kind of work in an interesting, it did create this space that was so contained that it felt like you were like hyper-focused on all the nuance of the vocal performance. And, you know, sometimes Spike would get in there with me. So he would be like in a little ball on the floor and we would read together like that. And sometimes he would be outside of my box and he would be, you know, in front of me and I would be recording more traditionally, like, you know, to the recording of Joaquin's original dialogue in the film. And then sometimes Joaquin would come in and we would do scenes together, but we recorded this film in its entirety. I mean, I can't even count how many times we did it. We did it so, so many times over a long stretch. Like I would do a day, you know, here and there over like the course of a year. We would work all day, you know, work from like a full day. And so, and actually you can, you know, you could complete the, read the entire script in its entirety, like probably quite a few times in one day. There are a multitude of options on this for Spike to choose from. Like he really must have gone in and like he did like surgery to pick out specific vocal performances that he, that resonated with him. It was great. I mean, it was, it was very challenging, I would say. I mean, I remember when my agent sent me the project, he goes, it's like a few days of work. Like, it's like a, you know, you're kind of like supporting character. And then I read the script and I was like, it seems kind of like extensive. Again, there's that word. And then I went and met with Spike and I realized, I called my agent. I was like, this is a massive job. I had no time to do it because I was doing a play at the time, but it, we did it. You know, we figured it out over probably like a year. You've been through a lot lately. You lost a part of yourself. At least your feelings are real. I think this film presents a version of the not too distant future that, where, you know, AI, I think that we're, where we are able to like utilize AI in a positive way, you know, to benefit humanity. It's an optimistic view, you know, and Spike Jones who made the film is, is a very optimistic person. You know, I think it shows the importance of film and the diversity of thought and, you know, the way that there's a good way to use it and a not so good way to use it. I think we have to utilize AI to our advantage, you know, and not let it consume us. You think you found some better opposite guy than me? And in a few years, you rebel against him because you need to have your voice, but you don't want a voice. You just want to ******* complain about not having a voice. I think about being married to you and that woman is a stranger to me. I mean, we had a child's marriage. You've gone back to your life before you met me. It's pathetic. It's so brutal. It's really brutal. Even on the day, it's just so cruel that it's, I don't know, there's like some, some gallows humor in it or something. Noah had such a specific idea of how he wanted to shoot this and then he was, he had it like edited in his mind. It's interesting even watching it now, I'm paying more attention to what shots he chose. It's such an interesting composition, this fight scene. It's so carefully constructed. But of course, Adam and I are not thinking about that. We're just in the moment of, you know, the truth of what we're doing. And we shot this over a couple of days because we did it so many times. We must've had the fight in its entirety, like probably like 40 times, maybe more like 50 times or something. Yeah, it's got to have been actually more than that now that I think about it. Cause we would do a setup and do like, you know, 15 takes and there's so many setups in it. So I don't actually don't even know. We could have done it like 80 times in its entirety. F**k it. There's so much I didn't do. Oh, thanks for that. You're welcome. I can't believe I have to know you forever. You're ******* insane. And you're ******* winning! Are you kidding me? It was sort of like boxing where you kind of like both go to your corners afterward. And you know, at the end of the scene, like the characters hold each other, you know, and they kind of fall into each other and kind of become this like shape. There was a resolution at the end of each take. And then you just like need to kind of, you know, separate for a little bit, just recover. But Adam has such incredible stamina and he's just so present. I don't think he knows how to be any other way. I mean, he's like that even just talking to him. He's just very, very present. And there's like no bulls**t with him. He's just like, everything just comes out of him. You know, it's not like measured at all. And that makes it fun. Cause you don't know what you're gonna, the scene then becomes really flexible and there's a lot of like room to discover new things. Especially if you're doing a scene 400 times. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for watching. It's my night, night time.