Scarlett Johansson is one of my favorite young actresses. She was born on November 22, 1984 (about a month before I graduated from college!) in Manhattan. By the time she was three, she had discovered acting, but she didn’t get her first film role until she was ten years old when she appeared in North. It was a short part as were her next three roles in Just Cause, If Lucy Fell , and Fall, but she was already showing a special something in her acting. Her role in Manny & Lo in 1996 won her an Independent Spirit nomination for Best Actress. She won a Hollywood Reporter Young Star award for her portrayal of Grace in The Horse Whisperer. Although it was her seventh film, she received an “introducing” credit.
At 15, she played the 18-year-old Rebecca in Ghost World. This was the first film I saw Scarlett in and while I enjoyed her acting, she did not really make a big impression on me until 2001 when I saw her in The Man Who Wasn’t There. Scarlett played the small role of Birdie in this film and I do not know if it was her voice, her beauty (the movie was filmed in black and white), or her acting that made me take notice. Maybe what caught my attention was a combination of the three.
My favorite Scarlett movie is Lost in Translation. You might not think a movie which alludes to a romantic attraction between Bill Murray, not exactly a typically handsome leading man, and Scarlett Johansson, almost 35 years Murray’s junior, would work, but they both pulled it off beautifully. One thing I like about Scarlett is she does not conform to the crazy ways of Hollywood as some actresses do. She is not stick-thin, but shapely and makes no apologizes about it. She is usually not wearing the latest fashions on the Red Carpet, but tends to gravitate towards the classic look of Hollywood starlets of the 40s and 50s. She also carries a maturity about her far beyond her twenty-two years.
Scarlett is currently working on or waiting for the release of four movies: Scoop (her second Woody Allen film), The Black Dahlia (about the infamous Hollywood murder), The Prestige (a mystery/murder film about two magicians), and The Nanny Diaries (a comedy in which she plays a nanny).
If you have not seen any of Scarlett’s movies, you can pick them up at Amazon.com.