Scarlett Johansson
Thursday, September 25, 2008A pouty and pretty strawberry blonde New Yorker who commenced her career a child actor with instincts, skills and a streetwise grace that far outpaced her age, Scarlett Johansson first came to attention playing the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw terrorized by Blair Underwood in "Just Cause" (1995). Having made her stage debut at age eight in 1993's "Sophistry" at Playwrights Horizons Theatre, the young player also studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute....
Full Bio , Awards & Milestones
Filmography
A View From the Bridge - ( - Cast / / Announced / )
Amazon - ( - Cast / / Announced / )
Borgia - ( Lucrezia Borgia / / Announced / )
Brilliant - ( - Cast / / Announced / )
Forget About It - ( - Cast / / Announced / )
Napoleon and Betsy - ( Producer / / Announced / )
Silent Star - ( / / Announced / Lakeshore International )
New York, I Love You - ( Director / 2009 / Lensing/Awaiting Release / )
The Spirit - ( Silken Floss / 2009 / Lensing/Awaiting Release / )
He's Just Not That Into You - ( Anna / 2008 / Lensing/Awaiting Release / )
The Other Boleyn Girl - ( Mary Boleyn / 2008 / Released / )
Vicky Cristina Barcelona - ( Cristina / 2008 / Released / )
The Nanny Diaries - ( Annie Braddock / 2007 / Released / )
Scoop - ( Sondra Pransky / 2006 / Released / )
The Black Dahlia - ( Kay Lake / 2006 / Released / )
The Prestige - ( Olivia Wenscombe / 2006 / Released / )
Match Point - ( Nola Rice / 2005 / Released / )
The Island - ( Jordan Two-Delta/Sarah Jordan / 2005 / Released / )
A Love Song for Bobby Long - ( Pursy Will / 2004 / Released / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment )
In Good Company - ( Alex Foreman / 2004 / Released / Universal Studios Home Entertainment )
The Perfect Score - ( Francesca / 2004 / Released / )
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie - ( Voice of Mindy / 2004 / Released / Paramount Home Entertainment )
Girl With a Pearl Earring - ( Griet / 2003 / Released / )
Lost In Translation - ( Charlotte / 2003 / Released / )
Lost In Translation - ( Song Performer / 2003 / Released / )
Eight Legged Freaks - ( Ashley / 2002 / Released / )
A Good Woman - ( Meg Windermere / 2001 / Released / )
American Rhapsody - ( Suzanne / 2001 / Released / )
Ghost World - ( Rebecca 'Becky' / 2001 / Released / Paramount Pictures )
The Man Who Wasn't There - ( Birdy Abundas / 2001 / Released / Asmik Corporation )
My Brother the Pig - ( Cathy / 2000 / Released / )
The Horse Whisperer - ( Grace MacLean / 1998 / Released / Village Roadshow Pictures Worldwide )
Home Alone 3 - ( Molly / 1997 / Released / Gemini Films )
If Lucy Fell - ( Emily / 1996 / Released / )
Manny and Lo - ( Amanda--Manny / 1996 / Released / )
Just Cause - ( Kate / 1995 / Released / )
North - ( Laura Nelson / 1994 / Released / )
TV Credits
Stand Up To Cancer ( 2008 / Released ): Actor
The 2008 MTV Video Music Awards ( 2008 / Released ): Actor
The 2008 Teen Choice Awards ( 2008 / Released ): Actor
Robot Chicken ( 2005 / Released ): Voice
Donkey Punch ( 2006 )
TV Episode
Veggies for Sloth ( 2006 )
TV Episode
Joint Point ( 2005 )
TV Episode
Piece of Action ( 2005 )
TV Episode
Toyz in the Hood ( 2005 )
TV Episode
The 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards ( 2005 / Released ): Actor
The 77th Annual Academy Awards ( 2005 / Released ): Actor
The 2004 MTV Movie Awards ( 2004 / Released ): Actor
The 58th Annual Tony Awards ( 2004 / Released ): Actor
The 76th Annual Academy Awards ( 2004 / Released ): Actor
The 9th Annual Critics' Choice Awards ( 2004 / Released ): Actor
17th Annual IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards ( 2002 / Released ): Actor
Visions of Grace: Robert Redford and "The Horse Whisperer" ( 1998 / Released ): Actor
John Grisham's The Client ( 1995 / Released ): Actor
Full Biography
A pouty and pretty strawberry blonde New Yorker who commenced her career a child actor with instincts, skills and a streetwise grace that far outpaced her age, Scarlett Johansson first came to attention playing the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw terrorized by Blair Underwood in "Just Cause" (1995). Having made her stage debut at age eight in 1993's "Sophistry" at Playwrights Horizons Theatre, the young player also studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. Her screen debut in Rob Reiner's disastrous "North" (1994) was less than memorable, but Johansson has maintained an even career, impressing with her fully-realized characterizations in nearly every showing.
She got noticed as one of Eric Schaeffer's wise charges in "If Lucy Fell" and took a co-starring role in the understated independent "Manny & Lo" (both 1996), a perfect vehicle for the actress to prove her talents. Johansson's finely crafted portrayal of Amanda (Manny), a rather sensible 11-year-old who escapes from a foster home and runs away with her 16-year old sister Laurel (Lo) earned her critical praise and led directly to her casting in the high profile but disappointing 1997 release "Home Alone 3" and the highly-anticipated romance "The Horse Whisperer" (1998). In the latter, Johansson landed the coveted role of Grace, a youngster who suffers a physically and emotionally debilitating riding accident. When her mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) turns to a horse trainer (Robert Redford) for assistance, romance blooms, and as Johansson turned what could have been little more than a two-dimensional plot device into a full-fledged character, an actress bloomed.
All but disappearing after this film-saving turn, the performer resurfaced three years later in the independent favorite "Ghost World" (2001), starring alongside Thora Birch as the more pragmatic of two best friends who have just graduated from high school and are making plans for the future amidst their own adventures, both real and invented. Snarky but somehow sweet, her Rebecca didn't get the screen time and controversial storyline of compatriot Enid (Birch) but nonetheless impressed in her smaller role. Later that year, she played a young Hungarian girl left behind when her refugee family flees their homeland in a Cold War political climate in "An American Rhapsody" and earned even more indie credentials as a piano-playing teenager who catches the attention of a crafty barber (Billy Bob Thornton) in the Coen brothers' acclaimed period noir "The Man Who Wasn't There". Taking a break from this more heady material, Johansson would next battle giant spiders in the surprisingly fun sci-fi comedy "Eight-Legged Freaks" (2002).
Johansson's true breakout performance would come--like gangbusters--in "Lost in Translation" (2003), writer-director Sophia Coppola's wonderfully romantic film about Charlotte, an emotionally adrift young married tourist in her 20s, left to her own devices in Tokyo while her self-involved photographer husband is on a shoot, who meets and forms a deep, complex relationship with Bob Harris (Bill Murray) an equally disaffected 50-something Hollywood actor. The actress—only 18 during filming—is a revelation in the picture, displaying a rare, multilayered chemistry with Murray despite their age difference. Their rapport, a first tentative, then confident and cozy and then suddenly awkward and sexual, fuels the movie and carries many scenes completely without dialogue. Her subtle yet knockout performance, wildly praised by critics, was poised to rocket Johansson to new career heights. Hot on the heels of that role, Johansson also dazzled audiences in the indie "Girl With a Pearl Earring" (2003), a speculative account of the life of Griet, a 16-year-old girl who appears in Johannes Vermeer's (Colin Firth's) most famous painting. As a result of her two strong 2003 performances, at age 19 Johansson received a pair Golden Globe nominations--one for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama (for "Girl With a Pearl Earring") and another for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (for "Lost In Translation").
Johansson's next vehicle, made before her big breakout, was the limp teen caper movie "The Perfect Score" (2004) in which she played the thrill-seeking, daddy-loathing member of a gang of high school students plotting an ambitious scheme to swipe the key to the SAT exam, and she voiced Mindy in the animated "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" (2004). She was better served with a pair of challenging roles released simultaneously at the end of 2004: first, she added depth to her supporting role as the daughter of a middle-aged ad salesman (Dennis Quaid) who becomes involved with her father's new young boss (Topher Grace) in writer-director Paul Weitz's adult comedy "In Good Company"; next, she played the headstrong teen Pursy Will, who returns to her late mother's home to unexpectedly share it with a pair of booze-soaked intellectual boarders (John Travolta and Gabriel Macht) for the Southern-influenced character drama "A Love Song for Bobby Long." In both films Johansson's potent combination of adolescent freshness and wise-beyond-her-years maturity helped breath a compelling realism into her roles.
Johansson next tried the sci-fi action genre with director Michael Bay's misfire "The Island" (2005), playing a woman living in an orderly environment in a post-Apocalyptic world hoping to win relocation to the only remaining pure bio-zone on the planet, only to discover her world is a facade for a more sinister scenario. The actress fared better with a more accomplished auteur when she appeared in Woody Allen's serious-minded film "Match Point" (2005) playing Nola, a sensual but struggling American actress in London who takes up an affair with her ex-beau's brother-in-law (Jonathan Rhys-Myers), and her demanding nature soon forces the man to chose between her and his comfortable, status-granting marriage. The result was one of Allen's best works in years, and the writer-director quickly drafter Johansson to star in his next project "Scoop" (lensed 2005), a romantic comedy that cast her as an American student in London who becomes involved with an aristocrat.
After “Scoop” came and went without much fanfare, Johansson costarred in “The Black Dahlia” (2006), Brian De Palma’s take on James Ellroy’s complicated and richly-textured noir thriller about two hard-edged cops (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart) who descend into obsession, corruption and sexual degeneracy as they investigate the brutal murder of would-be actress Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner), who was found tortured and vivisected in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. Johansson played the girlfriend of Detective Leland Blanchard (Eckhart), a relationship that threatens the two detectives from finding the murderer because of her growing attraction to his partner, Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert (Hartnett). She next appeared in “The Prestige” (2006), a supernatural thriller set in 1878 about two stage magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) who clash in a saloon during a fraudulent séance and maintain an ongoing feud that takes both to the top of their careers, but results in terrible consequences.
Profession(s):
Actor
Sometimes Credited As:
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Family
brother:Adrian Johansson (Older)
brother:Hunter Johansson (Twin of Scarlett; had bit part in "Manny & Lo" (1996))
father:Karsten Johansson (Danish; had bit role in "Manny & Lo" (1996))
mother:Melanie Johansson (Born to a Jewish family in the Bronx; had bit role in "Manny & Lo" (1996))
sister:Vanessa Johansson (Had bit role in "Manny & Lo" (1996))
Companion(s)
Benicio Del Toro , Companion , ```..Rumored to have had a sexual liaison in an elevator at the 2005 Oscars; Johansson denied the incident occured
Jared Leto , Companion , ```..Dated in 2004; no longer together
Josh Hartnett , Companion , ```..Met while filming "The Black Dahlia" (2006); reportedly split in November 2006
Patrick Wilson , Companion , ```..Dated for more than a year; no longer together
Ryan Reynolds , Companion , ```..Began dating Summer 2007; announced engagement in May 2008
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Education
Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute New York, NY
Professional Children's School New York, NY 2002
Awards
BAFTA Award Best Actress "Lost in Translation" 2004
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Best Actress "Lost in Translation" 2003
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award New Generation 2003
Toronto Film Critics Association Award Best Supporting Actress "Ghost World" 2001
YoungStar Award Young Actress in a Drama Film "The Horse Whisperer" 1998
Milestones
2008 Cast as Mary Boleyn in "The Other Boleyn Girl" opposite Natalie Portman
2008 Joined Spanish actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem for Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
2007 Cast as the nanny of a wealthy Manhattan household in "The Nanny Diaries"
2006 Re-teamed with Allen for the comedy "Scoop" as a college newspaper journalist opposite Hugh Jackman
2006 Cast as Aaron Eckhart's wife in "The Black Dahlia"; Brian De Palma's adaptation of James Ellroy's classic noir novel
2005 Co-starred opposite Ewan McGregor in the sci-fi thriller "The Island" directed by Michael Bay
2005 Starred as a femme fatal in Woody Allen's "Match Point"; earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress
2004 Became the official face of Calvin Klein's new fragrance
2004 Starred with Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid in the comedy "In Good Company" directed by Paul Weitz
2004 Starred with John Travolta in "A Love Song for Bobby Long"; received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Lead Actress (Drama)
2003 Co-starred with Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation"; directed by Sofia Coppola; earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress
2003 Starred in a "Girl with a Pearl Earring" as a servant girl in the 17th century; earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress
2002 Battled giant spiders in the sci-fi comedy "Arac Attack"
2001 Co-starred as Rebecca in "Ghost World"
2001 Starred as a young Hungarian girl left behind when her family emigrates to the United States in the Cold War-set drama "An American Rhapsody"
2001 Featured as a piano-playing nymphet who catches the attention of a barber (Billy Bob Thornton) in the Coen brothers' acclaimed period noir "The Man Who Wasn't There"
1998 Had pivotal role as a young girl injured in a riding accident in Robert Redford's "The Horse Whisperer"
1997 Featured in "Home Alone 3"
1996 Acted in Eric Schaeffer's romantic comedy "If Lucy Fell"
1996 Starred in the independent film "Manny & Lo"
1995 Played daughter to Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw in "Just Cause"
1995 Appeared in pilot episode of "John Grisham's 'The Client'" (CBS)
1994 Feature acting debut with small role in "North"
1993 Made Off-Broadway debut in "Sophistry" at Playwrights Horizons
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