Scarlett Johansson is opening up about being “pigeonholed” and “pulled apart” for her appearance in the early days of her career, which she notes was a “socially acceptable” thing to do at that time.
“It was such another time too,” Johansson told CBS Sunday Morning during an interview that aired on April 12. “I think growing up in the industry, and then being a woman, a 20-something-year-old woman in the early 2000s, in the spotlight in general, it was just a really harsh time. Women were just pulled apart for how they looked in a way that was socially acceptable at the time.”
The A-List actress, who is the second highest grossing performer in film history, reflected on how important beauty standards were for women in the industry when she broke in the early 2000s. “It was tough. There was a lot placed on how women looked,” she explained. “What was offered at that time for women my age, as far as acting roles or opportunities, was much slimmer than it is now.”
In the early 2000s, Johansson starred in the likes of Lost in Translation, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and The Island. Johansson put an emphasis on the fact that there are “much more empowering roles” available to women in the current landscape, whereas, when she was getting her start, there were “slim pickins” as far as the types of roles women could get.
“You would get really pigeonholed and offered the same [roles],” the Oscar nominee noted. “It would be like the other woman, or the side piece, the bombshell. That was the archetype that was prevalent when I was that age.”
Rosamund Pike recently recalled her experience working on the 2005 Doom movie, which she described as “an absolute bomb” that could have ended her career. “It was probably after that that I started to do my research,” she continued. “Because I didn’t know enough about video games. I wasn’t the right kind of girl to be in that. I didn’t want to be the sex symbol. So it’s okay I guess to fail at being an action star if to be an action star in those days was to be the absolute bombshell sex symbol. I just wasn’t that person.
“And so, as the girl in a film like that, if the film is a bomb, you do think, s**t, it’s because I wasn’t hot enough. It’s not the total, obviously, the failure of the film, but if loads of guys say that film is s**t, your part in it is to play your character but also look hot. And I don’t think I got that or took that seriously, or worked out for the gym body that a better female action star would have done. Also, nobody helped me. Nobody said. Nowadays, I’m sure an actress cast in that would have a personal trainer. There would be a conversation about, you’re playing Lara Croft, this is how she should look.”
As for Johansson, the Golden Globe nominee has since grown out of the confines of the early 2000s to become one of the most recognizable performers in the world. Her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, starred June Squibb had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year. It was released months later in the fall of 2025. Her upcoming projects include The Batman: Part II and Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist reboot.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
