‘My mother always instilled in me that I could do whatever I wanted to do as far as dreams and goals were concerned,’ said Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is sitting in a Manhattan hotel suite giving me practical tips on how to handle a snake. ‘You just pick it up and throw it – or gently place it – in a bucket,’ she says brightly. ‘If you don’t want to pick it up yourself, you can always bend a wire clothes hanger and use it like a hook to pick it up.’
Such a laid-back attitude isn’t what you expect from the all-action star of Iron Man 2. But Scarlett is playing a zookeeper in her latest film We Bought a Zoo, based on the real-life memoir of British journalist Benjamin Mee, who took over a dilapidated 30-acre zoo in Devon, saving 200 animals that were due to be put down. And she had to deal with snakes – lots of them – for a pivotal scene with her co-star Matt Damon.
‘We had to recapture an escaping shipment of all kinds of exotic snakes, such as pythons and anacondas. You don’t go on to a film set knowing you’re going to put 70 snakes in a bucket and think this is a normal job,’ she laughs. ‘But you do it, you get in there.’
Coincidentally, when we meet I am feeling a bit shaky following two snake-related episodes at the holiday cottage my family has been renting in the New York countryside.
First, my 13-year-old daughter found a 6ft black mountain snake coiled cosily among the towels in a cupboard (cue shrieks worthy of a Hammer horror flick before my husband coaxed it into a rubbish bin and freed it in the woods). Then, just before I set off for this interview, we spotted a rattlesnake lurking in the wisteria by the front door of our ‘idyllic’ country retreat.
I wonder how Scarlett would have reacted? ‘I would not want to get too close before I could identify what it was,’ she says, ‘but if it was not venomous, I would have handled it.’ The conversation gets increasingly bizarre.
‘You can pick it up anywhere. A snake is just a big muscle really,’ she says, sounding impressively knowledgeable. She also tells me that she grew up with reptiles in her family’s Manhattan apartment. ‘We had lizards, frogs, toads and turtles. My mum was allergic to animals with fur, so I said, “A gecko doesn’t have any fur,” and she was like, “Damn, I should have thought of that.”’
Scarlett now has two dogs: Baxter, ‘a kind of golden retriever’ who she shares with her ex-husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, and Maggie, a chihuahua. She declares herself an animal lover and was immediately attracted to We Bought a Zoo.
Scarlett stars as Kelly Foster, the zookeeper who is in charge of the lions, tigers, zebras and Crystal the capuchin monkey (who also appeared in the comedy The Hangover). The fictional Benjamin knows nothing about animals (unlike the real Benjamin, who studied zoology and animal behaviour) and relies on Kelly’s expertise.
To research the role, Scarlett worked with Californian animal handlers ‘doing anything from prepping food to mucking out stalls and medicating sick animals’.
The film is both funny and emotional as Benjamin struggles to bring the zoo back to life – chasing after an escaped grizzly bear, fending off creditors and battling health and safety officials. Director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous), with the full support of Benjamin, switched the action from rugged Dartmoor to sunny Southern California and changed the timeline of the story. Benjamin took over the zoo in 2006 with his wife Katherine and their two young children, Ella and Milo, but Katherine died after a heartbreaking battle with cancer just before it reopened to the public in 2007. In the Hollywood version, Matt Damon is already a widower when he buys the broken-down zoo.
‘He’s grasping for anything to pull him out of his grief and is desperately trying to save his children from falling into the abyss,’ says Scarlett. ‘I think the spirit of the land and the animals gives him a whole new lease of life.’
Scarlett attends the Golden Camera Awards in Berlin, Germany
In stark contrast to the low-cut, clingy outfits that directors love to dress her in, Scarlett spends most of the movie in checked shirts, jeans and boots – although the simplicity of the clothes only accentuates her beauty and that va-va-voom figure.
‘What I love about Kelly is that she doesn’t use her 𝑠e𝑥uality in an overt way. She’s dedicated to her job and puts herself last all the time; she’s straightforward, there are no airs, she’s a caretaker,’ says the 27-year-old actress.
Scarlett has had Hollywood at her feet for nearly a decade since Lost in Translation – she won a Bafta for her first adult role, as a young woman who gets involved with a washed-up actor (Bill Murray) in a Tokyo hotel. Woody Allen cast her in Match Point, Scoop and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and has described her as being ‘criminally 𝑠e𝑥y’.
She has already collected four Golden Globe nominations and a prestigious Tony award for her New York stage role in Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge. And she has mesmerised leading men from Javier Bardem in Vicky Cristina Barcelona to Colin Firth in Girl with a Pearl Earring.
In person she is delightful but, at first, reserved. She’s recovering from laryngitis, so her deep, sultry voice is even huskier than usual, and she orders tea to soothe her throat.
Sporting a choppy haircut (instead of her customary blonde mane) for her role as Black Widow in the new superhero film The Avengers (a reprise of the character she played in Iron Man 2), she’s wearing a striped shirt and cropped black trousers – more urban sophisticate than ravishing seductress. It’s as though she’s playing down the 𝑠e𝑥-bomb image that has led to comparisons with Marilyn Monroe and all those ‘𝑠e𝑥iest actress’ titles. She sighs when I broach the subject.
‘I am not complaining – every woman wants to be considered beautiful – but I have always thought of myself as a character actor, not a glamour puss. Actors don’t want to be labelled as anything.’
It’s hard to imagine Scarlett as anonymous, but she definitely plays against type in We Bought a Zoo. There are no steamy love scenes – although Scarlett and her leading man have a powerful chemistry.
‘There’s something very golden-age Hollywood about Matt,’ she says. ‘He’s got a Cary Grant quality – he’s absolutely adorable and funny and he’s got a beautiful family. He’s an ideal husband,’ she laughs. ‘No, he’s not my ideal,’ she quickly clarifies.
‘He’s somebody else’s husband! But he’s such a lovely guy. His children and wife were always on set; he’s on daddy duty all the time.
‘Kelly’s just a true friend to Benjamin, but there is, of course, an attraction,’ she says. ‘I think that these two characters are not looking for a relationship. My character has no time.’
Does Scarlett relate to Kelly? She pauses for a beat and smiles.
‘Sure. I mean, to be in a relationship you have to be in a place where you’re capable of compromising some parts of your life and really letting someone else in, and when you’re totally overwhelmed with your work, it’s impossible to do that, I think.
‘Benjamin’s not capable of having a relationship. He’s in love with somebody already and he’s heartbroken (about his wife).’
Do you get to kiss Matt?
‘You’re going to have to wait and see,’ she says.
She is equally reluctant to discuss her own love life. There were alleged romances with actors including Benicio Del Toro, Justin Timberlake and Josh Hartnett before her marriage to Ryan Reynolds in September 2008 (they separated in December 2010), and she was involved with Sean Penn for several months last year. More recently she has been linked in the tabloids to Hangover star Bradley Cooper – as well as being seen with Reynolds again.
So I am surprised, when I ask her what she has learnt about relationships over the years, that she decides to open up.
‘I have learnt that communication is the most valuable part of a relationship,’ she says, ‘being truthful to yourself and to your partner and, when you have a problem, getting to the root of it.’ She continues, ‘I think people are secretive by nature. I like to try to work things out on my own and I am not used to seeking out advice. But when you’re in a relationship, just realising that you don’t have to take care of everything is important.’
Working professionally since she was eight, Scarlett has felt a burden of responsibility. (She says that, like her character Kelly, she has ‘always been a bit of a caretaker’.)
She grew up in New York with her Danish father Karsten, an architect, her mother Melanie (who became a film producer and Scarlett’s manager), twin brother Hunter and two older siblings, Vanessa and Adrian.
‘My mother always instilled in me that I could do whatever I wanted to do as far as dreams and goals were concerned.’ Acting was an early love. ‘I took tap dance and vocal lessons and went to acting school. My goal was to be in Oklahoma!’ (Music remains a passion: she has released two successful albums, Anywhere I Lay My Head and Break Up.)
Scarlett at an awards ceremony with Sean Penn last summer
With Bradley Cooper in April 2011
With Justin Timberlake last June
She began auditioning for commercials, ‘but my voice was too deep. I hated the rejection, so I stopped,’ she says. Instead she auditioned for films and landed her first role in North (1994) alongside a young Elijah Wood. Her breakthrough came with The Horse Whisperer (1998) with Robert Redford (who also directed), playing a girl traumatised by a riding accident.
Unlike many child stars, she made a seemingly natural transition to adult roles. She credits her family with providing all-important stability.
‘I had the best of both worlds because when I wasn’t working I went to regular school (the Professional Children’s School in New York, which provides an academic education for children involved in the performing arts). I had a normal childhood in the sense that I played in the street and had friends in the neighbourhood, and then I would go away for three months at a time to do what I felt I was born to do.’
Was there ever another option?
‘I probably would have been a doctor; I was a decent student when I applied myself. But I can’t imagine what would make me feel more useful or happier than acting.’
Being ‘useful’ includes a passion for charity work, too. An ambassador for Oxfam, Scarlett went on a ‘life-changing’ trip to India with the charity in 2008 (instead of attending the Oscars).
‘In a village where they have nothing, they spent three days preparing a lentil feast for us; the children prepared a show for a special ceremony and it was incredibly touching. It’s not like they’re fans. We’re strangers to them; they just know I work with Oxfam.’
Filming on The Avengers (with Robert Downey Jr and Captain America Chris Evans) now complete, Scarlett is about to fly to Kenya to visit Somalian refugee camps, again with Oxfam. She supported President Obama in 2008 and has been busy backing another Democrat, Scott Stringer, in his campaign to be mayor of New York. (Her twin brother is running the campaign.)
On top of that there is her lucrative cosmetics contract with Dolce & Gabbana and a luxurious role as ambassador for Moët & Chandon (‘a dream job – every time we do a shoot there are magnums of champagne being popped!’).
She has recently returned from Scotland where she was filming sci-fi thriller Under the Skin with British director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast), in which she plays an alien disguised as the ‘perfect’ woman, who roams the countryside snaring men. It sounds bizarre.
‘It is a crazy, crazy project,’ laughs Scarlett.
‘I’d never been to Scotland before but it was great. I love it there. It’s cold and wet and windy. The people are lovely.’
I wonder how hard it is to balance work and relationships?
‘I’m still looking for that balance,’ she says. ‘Half of my heart belongs to my work. I think that probably changes when you have children. At some point I’d like to have kids. I am nowhere near that now, though. I have too much to do.’
Home is still New York.
‘It’s just a beautiful dump of a city. I love people-watching and just walking around. It is poetic and romantic and inspiring…’
People-watching, when you are Scarlett Johansson?
‘In big cities it’s easy,’ she assures me. ‘Actually, if I couldn’t live in New York I’d live in London. I love Notting Hill and the flea markets.’
She reveals that she splashed out on her most expensive pair of shoes (‘I’m embarrassed to say how much’) while in London, encouraged by Woody Allen.
‘It was the most extravagant thing I ever did. I was looking for a pair of brogues and Woody said, “Diane (Keaton) used to get her shoes made at John Lobb.” So I went, and you pick your style and your leather. They measure your feet and everything, then the bill comes and you’re like, “Oh, these should be made out of lapis and gold.” But I have to say they’re the most incredible shoes.’
And with that she steps out to walk home through the rainy streets of her beloved New York.