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Career Watch: Scarlett Johansson, Beyond the Black Bodysuit

Features
by Sophia Savage
May 7, 2012 3:40 PM
2 Comments
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Scarlett Johansson's role as Black Widow in "The Avengers" would be unnecessary if the superhero rulebook didn't require at least one buxom babe in black spandex. Thus secret agent Johansson plays a distant fiddle to Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans et al's super-human powers. Although her assassin has no superpower--other than outsmarting, interrogating and shooting and beating people to death ("looking puzzled or confused")--thanks to Joss Whedon's box office hit, attention is back on Johansson the kick-ass action babe rather than Johansson the nude-photo-hacking-scandal babe. But is Black Widow the best Johansson can do?

"Lost in Translation"

SIGNATURE QUOTES: "I just don't know what I'm supposed to be." - As Charlotte in "Lost in Translation" | "If you don't start undressing me soon this is going to turn into a panel discussion." - as Cristina, in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"

THE START: Johansson, at age thirteen, was "introduced" in Robert Redford's 1998 "The Horse Whisperer," though she had appeared in six films prior. Her pillowy lips, comely face and come-hither voice caught the attention of Sofia Coppola and Woody Allen and have afforded her consistent work as a self-aware and comparatively intelligent ingenue in films such as "Ghost World" and "A Love Song For Bobby Long" and as a thankless babe in Michael Bay's "The Island," Brian de Palma's "The Black Dahlia," Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige," and "Iron Man 2." While she hasn't been relegated to a single genre (she has steered clear of the rom-com hell of Katherin Heigl and Kate Hudson, probably because she played the other woman in "He's Just Not That Into You"), she has mainly popped as the muse of indie directors Coppola and Allen.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: "Lost in Translation" (95% Fresh) not only offered Johansson her strongest co-star to date (Bill Murray) but her most challenging role as an aimless woman stranded by her husband in Tokyo. It won her a BAFTA and a Golden Globe nomination (her others were "Girl with a Pearl Earring," "A Love Song for Bobby Long" and "Match Point"). Allen made us love her within the strong ensembles of "Match Point" and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (82% Fresh), but "Scoop" was their least successful joint effort. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (72% Fresh) made her beauty high-brow and earned raves.

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
BIGGEST ASSET: She's a young, smart, sophisticated, sexy and unique New Yorker. Nobody else looks like her. At twenty-seven, with a failed Hollywood marriage already behind her (to Ryan Reynolds, whose superhero attempts were less successful in DC land), a resume of big pictures, little pictures and everything in-between (not to mention a few albums, and a beauty endorsement from Dolce & Gabbana), it's feasible that she could reinvent herself and make a "serious actor" comeback before she's thirty. Whether she wants to or not is the question.

BIGGEST PROBLEM: Her reputation is not as a strong actress, which may be why she has avoided major career misfires, because she's never been responsible for carrying a film on her own; if she wants to change that perception she needs to shift her selection of projects.

CAREER ADVICE: Depending on how Sacha Gervasi handles the material, Johansson could launch a substance-over-style phase by playing Janet Leigh in "Hitchcock" (a making-of "Psycho" true story co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren's Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock). Or not: if anyone's got the body for a nude shower scene, it's her.

Revisit Johansson's career in trailers below:

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More: Career Watch, Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen, Sofia Coppola, Directors, Genres, Headliners, Media, Features

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2 Comments

  • Z. | May 12, 2012 12:49 PMReply

    I've never thought ScarJo was that strong of an actress either...compare that to Jennifer Lawrence who went into The Hunger Games with an Oscar nomination, received rave reviews for her performance in The Hunger Games and shouldered that film to a 152 million dollar opening, a600 million plus world wide gross. Lawrence proved that an actress can open an action film; she just has to have the kind of chops that Jennifer Lawrence has.

  • Steven Flores | May 7, 2012 5:41 PMReply

    If you were to ask me the top 10 Best Performances of Scarlett Johansson so far... here's what I would've picked...

    1. Girl with a Pearl Earring
    2. Lost in Translation
    3. Ghost World
    4. The Avengers
    5. Manny & Lo
    6. The Horse Whisperer
    7. The Man Who Wasn't There
    8. An American Rhapsody
    9. A Love Song for Bobby Long
    10. Match Point

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