THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 52 SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
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IOS
KAMB
OURIS/GETTY^ IMAGES.Before Baumbach launched into
his pitch about why he thought
Johansson would be perfect for
the role opposite Adam Driver, the
actress shared what was going on
in her marriage. “It totally caught
me off guard,” Baumbach says.
“I was like, ‘Well, you’re going to
either hate this idea or love it. This
may be exactly not the headspace
you want to be putting yourself
in, or maybe it will be healing.’ ”
The movie, Marriage Story, turned
out to be the latter. “We talked a
lot about the actual experience
of divorce because I was in the
middle of the process,” Johansson
says. “We talked about becoming
throat. It’s a hectic time for the
actress: This fall, Johansson, who
has never been nominated for an
Oscar despite critically acclaimed
performances in such movies
as Lost in Translation and Match
Point, stars in two likely awards
contenders, Marriage Story for
Netflix and Taika Waititi’s Jojo
Rabbit, for Fox Searchlight, both
screening at the Toronto Film
Festival. When Black Widow
opens in May, it will be the first
female-fronted extravaganza to
kick off the summer box office
season. She also is preparing to
send Rose to kindergarten in New
York City and wed her fiance,
Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost.
In person, the actress is
unguarded and assured, even
on thorny topics — from actors
playing characters of different
races (which sparked a fierce
debate) to whom she’s backing for
president to why she’s standing
by Woody Allen. She apologizes
that her answer to one question
sounds “farty” (pretentious) but
never asks for forgiveness for
her opinions.
“How do I feel about Woody
Allen?” Johansson lets the ques-
tion hang for a moment. Ever
since the #MeToo movement
caused Dylan Farrow’s sexual
abuse allegations against her
father to be re-examined, mucha parent, and our parents. The
expectation that comes with being
in any kind of a relationship, and
the disappointment that can come
with that expectation.”
Johansson, 34, is recounting
this story in early August on the
set of Marvel’s Black Widow out-
side London, where she has been
living with Rose, her 5-year-old
daughter with Dauriac, for five
months. Fresh from a morning of
fight training, she arrives for an
interview in a wood-paneled con-
ference room at Pinewood Studios
wearing an Avengers T-shirt,
her hair in a messy bun, a gold
chain with Rose’s name on herof Hollywood has distanced itself
from Allen. The filmmaker long
has denied the claims, but many
actors who have worked with
him, including Michael Caine,
Timothée Chalamet and Greta
Gerwig, have publicly expressed
regret about doing so, and Allen
has been unable to find a U.S.
distributor for his movies since
Amazon canceled his deal in 2018.
Allen directed Johansson in Match
Point (2005), Scoop (2006) and
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
and played a key role in shaping
her career as one of Hollywood’s
most sought-after leading ladies.
After a beat, Johansson makes
it clear that she disagrees with
many of her peers. “I love Woody,”
she says. “I believe him, and I
would work with him anytime.”
Johansson continues: “I see
Woody whenever I can, and I
have had a lot of conversations
with him about it. I have been
very direct with him, and he’s
very direct with me. He main-
tains his innocence, and I believe
him.” Asked if this position feels
fraught to express in a cultural
environment where there is a
new and powerful emphasis on
believing women’s allegations,
Johansson says, “It’s hard because
it’s a time where people are very
fired up, and understandably.
Things needed to be stirred up,1 Johansson
and Roman
Griffin Davis
in Taika Waititi’s
Jojo Rabbit,
premiering
at TIFF.
2 From left:
Johansson,
Azhy Robertson
and Adam
Driver in Noah
Baumbach’s
Marriage Story,
also premiering
at Toronto.1When Scarlett Johansson met writer-
director Noah Baumbach for lunch in
2016 to talk about a role, she was in the
midst of a private ordeal, divorcing her
second husband, Frenchman Romain
Dauriac. Baumbach, who didn’t know about
Johansson’s pending split, was eager to dis-
cuss an unusually exposing film he was
writing. The tragicomic story would explore
terrain Baumbach encountered while
ending his marriage to actress Jennifer Jason
Leigh — the hideous fights, the mercenary
law yers, the wistf ul moments of wondering
whether things could be different.