Scarlett Johansson is opening up about being boxed in as a “sex object” following her breakout performance in 2003’s Lost in Translation.
In a fresh interview with Vanity Fair, Johansson reflected on her early career success with Sofia Coppola’s acclaimed film and how she found herself trapped by the limited roles that came her way afterward.
“After Lost in Translation, every role that I was offered for years was ‘the girlfriend,’ ‘the other woman,’ a sex object—I couldn’t get out of the cycle,” Johansson told Vanity Fair‘s David Canfield. “It sort of felt like, ‘Oh, I guess this is my identity now as an actor.’ There wasn’t much I could do with that.”
She pointed out that her agents didn’t help her avoid this typecasting while acknowledging they were simply, “reacting to the norm.”
“The industry worked like that forever,” she added.
But as she grew into her own style and identity, she became more aware of what was happening around her.
“You suddenly turn around and you’re like, ‘Wait, I feel like I’m being’—I don’t want to say exploited because it’s such a severe word,” Johansson shared. “That term is so heavy, but yeah, it was a kind of an exploitation.”
Lost in Translation starred Bill Murray as an aging director going through a midlife crisis in Tokyo, where he forms an unexpected connection with Johansson’s character, a recent college grad.
When filming took place, Johansson was just 17, while Murray was 52.
Speaking about her co-star, Johansson didn’t elaborate much but offered, “Bill was in a hard place. Everybody was on tenterhooks around him, including our director and the full crew, because he was dealing with his… stuff.”
But Johansson mentioned that when she bumped into Murray earlier this year backstage at SNL50, she encountered a “different person.”
“I think life has humbled him,” she said, before Canfield brought up the allegations against Murray from the set of Being Mortal, where he was accused of inappropriate behavior toward a female crew member.
“Certainly, yes—that was really bad,” Johansson responded. “But I also know COVID was a hard thing for him. Life—all these things have led up to him being held accountable for that kind of behavior. But you know what? How wonderful that people can change.”
