Scarlett Johansson covers the latest issue of Vanity Fair to support two wildly different projects. First, the potential summer blockbuster Jurassic World Rebirth. Then, this fall, we’ll see her directorial debut in Eleanor the Great. She’s really proud of both films – she’s been trying to get into the Jurassic franchise for years, and she’s so pleased that they finally gave her a shot. She’s also really jazzed about her other movie, which stars June Squibb in the lead. Some highlights from Scarlett’s interview – she didn’t really dish any major gossip, but it’s a nice profile.

On the doomscrolling in 2025: “It’s such a weird time. For me, there’s a blanket of unease. Every day it feels like you’re going to get hit with some news that’s disturbing…It’s awful. I’m thinking, Should I just get rid of my whole news feed now?”

Hollywood’s relative silence about Trump these days: She reminds me of who attended Trump’s inauguration in January. “These are people that are funding studios. It’s all these big tech guys that are funding our industry, and funding the Oscars, and so there you go. I guess we’re being muzzled in all these different ways, because the truth is that these big tech companies are completely enmeshed in all aspects of our lives.” How do you fight that? “I don’t know how you fight that,” she says, pointing to The Apprentice, the lightning rod Trump tale starring Sebastian Stan that most studios refused to touch. (It was acquired by the small distributor Briarcliff Entertainment and received two Oscar nominations.) “Here’s where you would go, ‘Okay, you can fight it by making stuff like that.’ But then what happened with the release? It was buried.”

Her lonely battles against AI: “There has to be some agreed-upon set of boundaries in order for [AI] to not be detrimental. I wish more people in the public eye would support and speak out about that—I don’t know why that’s not the case.”

Working with Bill Murray on ‘Lost in Translation’: “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.” She’d never encountered an actor in that kind of “headspace,” as she diplomatically puts it, and was left at sea.

She saw him again at the SNL 50 celebrations: “He’s such a different person now. I think life has humbled him.” I ask if she’s referring to the recent allegations of misconduct against him. (In 2022, production was suspended on the film Being Mortal after a female crew member reportedly alleged that Murray engaged in inappropriate behavior with her. Murray said at the time, “I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way.”) “Certainly, yes—that was really bad. 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.” She adds later, “But you know what? How wonderful that people can change.”

Typecast: “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. 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.” Her representatives at the time did not help. “They were reacting to the norm. The industry worked like that forever.”

Feeling exploited: “You come into your sexuality and your desirability as part of your growth, and it’s exciting to blossom into yourself. You’re wearing the clothes you want, you’re expressing yourself, then 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….That term is so heavy, but yeah, it was a kind of an exploitation.”

The backlash against her casting as a trans man: In 2018 she was preparing to play a trans man in a movie called Rub & Tug and held firm after backlash before later dropping out. “Sometimes, it’s better just to listen,” she says. The film never got made with another actor either, which disappointed her. She suggests that the character’s identity—a criminal with a dark past—was too thorny for Hollywood: “It was like, ‘We should still make this film with the right cast.’ But it didn’t seem possible without really angering someone. It’s unfortunate because those stories should be told. They need to be told.”

[From VF]

The Rub & Tug backlash was bad, but so was the backlash to Scarlett saying she should be able to play Asian characters and trees. I will never forget that!! It was only six years ago!! LMAO. Anyway, she sounds pretty chilled out overall – while I’ve never understood why she gave Colin Jost the time of day, I have to admit that this marriage has really centered her and made her very happy. I like what she said about why Hollywood is eerily quiet about Trump these days too – it’s a good reminder that all of those billionaire douchebags are sucking up to Trump and fundamentally changing Hollywood (and everything else).

Cover courtesy of VF and pics courtesy of Avalon Red.