Scarlett Johansson said Wednesday she has moved past fearing she will disappear as an actor, but that as a director it was important to share stories that might fade.
“I think I’ve been working for a long enough time that I’ve sort of moved past worrying about disappearing, which is very liberating,” she said at the Cannes Festival.
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The 40-year-old star, who played her first major role as a child in “The Horse Whisperer” in 1998, is at this year’s festival as an actor and to present her directorial debut “Eleanor The Great”.
Lead actress June Squibb, 95, won almost universal praise for her role as a grief-stricken retiree who moves to New York and adopts the personal story of her deceased best friend who survived the Holocaust.
“In a time where we grapple constantly with who has the right to tell someone else’s story, we also have to face the fact that the stories have to be told,” Johansson said. “Or else they disappear.”
Johansson told journalists that growing up in New York city, she could connect to “themes of Jewish identity”.
She said she also drew from personal experience to flesh out Eleanor’s character after receiving the script with Squibb attached as an actor.
“I had a grandmother who was not exactly like Eleanor, but also a very formidable — and sometimes impossible — person that I was very, very close with,” she said.
“And she is certainly woven into this story.”
Squibb said Johanssen’s experience as an actor helped on set.
“I’ve worked with some wonderful directors, but none of them have the acting knowledge that this one has,” she said. “It’s wonderful because you can relax, there’s no pressure.”
The veteran theatre and cinema actor was nominated for an Oscar for 2013 “Nebraska”, and recently starred in 2024 action film “Thelma” as a 93-year-old determined to hunt down a phone scammer.
But Squibb said actors were never sure about their actions. “We’re all trying to do it right,” she said.
When you take on a role, “you get another chance to do that — I mean, if you can keep working,” she said.
Johansson has also walked the Cannes red carpet as a member of the cast in Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme”, a contender for the Palme d’Or top prize.
AFP