Scarlett Johansson shines on the latest cover of INSTYLE, where she gets real about protecting her family’s privacy, navigating fame, and juggling life as a mom, entrepreneur, and Hollywood icon. Johansson shares candid insights on everything from why she stays off social media and avoids taking photos with fans outside of events to being ambushed by cameras during the SNL Weekend Update joke swap to standing up for herself and others against AI. Plus, what she wants Marvel fans to know about Natasha Romanoff’s final chapter.
On privacy, particularly with her children: “But if anyone knows me, I definitely over-share. I’m not a closed book, you know?” I’m politically active and vocal about it. But I am a private person in the sense that I value my close friendships. My family is very precious to me, as is their privacy. The anonymity of my children is very precious to me. I was talking to my daughter the other day, because she said, ‘Oh, I would love to make videos for The Outset.’” “She was like, ‘Why can’t I?’ And I said, ‘Well, other than the fact that you’re 10…’”
“The thing about being a public figure is that the idea of being recognizable and celebrated feels fun, but then you can never stuff it back in the bottle. The reality of it is, there’s a massive loss to that, you know? So I think preserving that for as long as possible until it’s someone’s choice, that’s the choice I make as far as my kids go.”
“I want to go and buy my own shit at Duane Reade.”
On fame, Chappell Roan, and dating heartthrobs early in her career: “I like to be in my own thoughts that have nothing to do with what other people think of me. I don’t like being self-conscious.” Johansson tells me that, after reading a piece on Chappell Roan, she found herself relating to her, and that gave her a new level of empathy. “Like everybody else, I fell in love with her over the summer. She’s very outspoken about how hard it’s been to adjust to fame.”
“It’s like heartthrobs. That’s hard. When I was younger, I dated actors that had heartthrob status. That is, to me, scary. I don’t have that level. Fan crush-dom can be really hard.”
On being ambushed on SNL during the Weekend Update holiday joke swap: “The fact that it took on a full To Catch a Predator-style reveal or whatever,” she says with a laugh, referencing the Dateline series setups, “that was so intense. All of a sudden, it was like a whole bunch of people holding up lights, and a guy with a video camera. They were waiting for me to react. I felt insane.” “I was like, I think I’m going to faint.”
She and Jost crawled into bed together at 4 o’clock that morning, laughing. “I was like, ‘My nerves are shot.’ And Colin said, ‘Me too.’” Little did they know, the internet would still be talking about the joke a month later.
On standing up for herself and others against AI: “My therapist always says—that’s the second time I’ve mentioned my therapist,” Johansson says, rolling her eyes, “’We’re always more human than otherwise.’ Particularly with the A.I. piece. It was like: If that can happen to me, how are we going to protect ourselves from this? There’s no boundary here; we’re setting ourselves up to be taken advantage of.”
“I don’t need to be beating the drum the whole time. That’s not my place. But, also, I’m not afraid of being invalidated. For certain things, particularly with the streamer residual piece, when the industry is in the process of this huge shift, that bubble eventually had to burst. I guess the bubble popped with me in a way.”
On why she won’t take photos with fans if she’s not at an event: “It really offends a lot of people. It doesn’t mean I’m not appreciative, of course, that people are fans, or happy to see me. But I always say to people, ‘I’m not working.’ And that means I don’t want to be identified as being in this time and place with you. I’m doing my own thing.”
On if she’ll ever join social media: “I mean, even today, I got an email from Universal [Pictures], and they’re like, ‘Hey, would you consider joining Instagram in tandem with the release of Jurassic World: Rebirth?’ I get a lot of pressure to join social media.” It does make her think. “Is there a way where I could do this and stay true to who I am? It didn’t feel like I could.”
“The work that I put out there is all based in truth. That’s the key ingredient. So if I was a person who really enjoyed social media, then I could totally get on the bandwagon. But I’m not. And I think the film will do fine.”
On her Jurassic World: Rebirth costar Jonathan Bailey’s skincare routine: “He uses The Outset,” she says, “he’s very good with his face. He’s getting all his facials and steaming or whatever.”
On managing her skin-care startup, The Outset, with a production company, a directorial debut, a thriving acting career, and parenting: “It’s understanding how to delegate. I’ve gotten better at that with more experience. I am kind of a control freak. I have a very active mind. People always describe how they’re ‘zoned out’ and I’m not sure what that means.”
“My work ethic comes from being on movie sets as a very young kid. I was immediately making feature-length films. I worked with a lot of adults as a young person. My mom really instilled in me the importance of being respectful on set to the adults I was working with. And being prepared for work every day.”
On her lasting legacy and why she uses it to speak up and stand up for herself: “I’m fortunate enough to have been working for such a long time, and not that long ago felt settled with where I am in my career. Like every single actor working, I had this constant fear that everything would go away. Or that every movie would be my last. I am still the 8-year-old kid just waiting to get another part. But now I see that actually I built something that… that I have a place here. And because of that, I’ve been able to stand up for myself and not feel like I would disappear. I can shoulder this.”
On what she wants to say to the Marvel fans: “Natasha is dead. She is dead. She’s dead. Okay? They just don’t want to believe it. They’re like, ‘But she could come back!’ Look, I think the balance of the entire universe is held in her hand. We’re going to have to let her go. She saved the world. Let her have her hero moment.”
[Photo Credit: Heather Hazzan/InStyle Magazine]
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