Interview: Scarlett Johansson

Wednesday, 02 May 2012 10:48

It seems that Scarlett Johansson has a lot more on her mind these days than her divorce from Ryan Reynolds and her naked body strewn around the information highway. Scarlett is back in Black Widow mode for The Avengers, during which the fate of the world is in her hands.

Luckily for us, during this conversation, the curvy green-screen butt-kicker had some time on her hands to crack a joke or two (instead of ribs). Scarlett also mulls same-sex screen kisses, the out-of-body blockbuster state of mind, down time in Hawaii, and accessorizing with a gun and knife with absolutely nothing underneath.

By Prairie Miller

Any romance happening in the movie?
There’s no time for romance! We’ve got shit to avenge!

Speaking of romance, who has been you favorite on-screen kiss?
Penelope [Cruz, in Vicky Cristina Barcelona] was pretty great I have to say.

How so?
She’s just full of passion and life, and she doesn’t have stubble, so that’s a plus. I’ve had a lot of really great on-screen romances. Hugh Jackman was wonderful. They call him the mayor of Hollywood. He’s so old school. Hugh kind of reminds me of, I don’t know, he’s got that Cary Grant quality. He can sort of do anything, but I’d say the best is Penelope just because of the lack of stubble.

So what exactly is going on when you’re fighting with a green screen?
We’re avenging something! It’s constant ass-kicking.

Okay...What was your biggest preparation for The Avengers?
Becoming the fittest I’ve ever been.

You did a lot of hand-to-hand combat in Iron Man 2. Do you up that in this one?
Yeah, there’s a combination of all that stuff. There’s definitely a lot of hand-to-hand combat still and a combination of different fighting styles—gymnastics, Muay Thai, boxing, kickboxing, all of that. I do all of that, and we use all kinds of stuff like knives, guns and all sorts of things.

So what’s going on with Black Widow?
I’m sort of on another mission. I think at the end of Iron Man 2 that mission is over for her, and she’s an agent who is tasked for some different purposes, so we find her sipping a Mai Thai in Hawaii. I think the first time that we saw this character in Iron Man 2, we didn’t really know much about her. We never really learned much about Black Widow. She’s really quiet, and she’s a slippery fish in Iron Man 2. We get little glimpses of her true identity, but it all happens so quickly. She has many different faces to put on in The Avengers.

How so?
She’s divisive in that way, but we get to see a little bit more of who she is. We get to see a little bit of her history and her kind of shady past. She’s a highly ambitious, highly trained and highly motivated character. She really tries to keep her eyes on the prize. It was definitely an exciting process.

How does it feel getting back into it?
Very surreal. It was just kind of an out-of-body experience, like dress-up but to the extreme. When the Avengers assembled, it feels like being a little kid. There’s always this plan that as soon as everything is cut, everything comes off. All our costumes are unzipped and some air conditioning venting unit goes in. We all have our various things that we have to do to get comfortable, and everybody looks incredibly uncomfortable until the cameras are rolling—then we all look f***ing badass. Then, “Cut!” And we’re all like, “Arrgh. God—this thing—get it off me.” It’s awful!

Those costumes look so uncomfortable. You look at them and go, “I can’t believe they wear that.”
Well, we all have our own. I’d say everybody has their own uncomfortable costume situation!

What about that red hair of yours?
That’s a girl thing. That has nothing to do with being a superhero. I’m talking about that it’s like 800 degrees in my costume. It’s a unitard and I have nothing underneath it!

What turns you on or off when you’re looking for characters to play?
Nothing to do with, you know, where she’s going to find her next date.

So how would you sum up the whole Avengers experience?
I think going into this process and even going into Iron Man 2, I think the whole idea is that you want the audience to be as enthusiastic as you are about the characters. You hope that you’ll be able to take the character farther. It’s certainly a process to zip up the suit every time, and it gets harder with each passing year. It was badass, and it incorporated the darker side of the character. It got down to the nitty gritty of who she is.

Do you ever think about life after movies?
I think it would be nice to have a vineyard somewhere. You know, have an organic farm or something like that. It’s just a hippy dippy kind of wish.

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