Scarlett Johansson Says She Was ‘Groomed’ To Become a ‘Bombshell’ Actor: ‘I Suddenly Found Myself Cornered’

Actress Scarlett Johansson says she was groomed by the industry and her manager to become a “bombshell” at a young age.

According to Variety, during a recent interview on the Table for Two podcast with host Bruce Bozzi, Johansson opened up about her early journey with acting.

“You, Scarlet, to me, are what I consider to be a bombshell. I’ve seen the movies where you — the bombshell-ness of you, you’re able to put aside. And of the past when I think of bombshells like Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe, they seemingly always had that they couldn’t get away from that. How do you sit in that chair so uniquely in Hollywood,” Bozzi asked.

“I started working when I was eight years old and, you know, kind of had different periods,” Johansson said. “I worked, you know, I worked in a movie when I was 10 old called Manny & Lo. So I — that helped me kind of start getting seen by bigger casting directors and stuff. And then I got cast in The Horse Whisper, which was a huge deal for me.”

Johansson said, by the time she was acting in the film Ghost World, she said she had become an ingenue in the acting world.

“I think that’s just part of, you know, that’s young girls like that are really objectified and that’s just a fact, you know?” Johansson said.

She explained that whatever acting category you’re put in at an early point in your career, often becomes the trajectory for your career.

“Now obviously women are really able more now to choose their own path, but for me it was like, okay, I kind of started down this path of ingenue and then, you know, I did whatever movies and movies and then I did Lost In Translation and, and Girl Pearl Earring. And by that point I was, you know, 18, 19. And I was coming into my own womanhood and flirting with my own, like desirability and sexuality,” she said.

“I think because of that trajectory that I had been sort of launched towards, I really got stuck in this. And also, it was definitely a part of my management at the time. That was a big part of it, you know, my agency and all that stuff,” she continued.

“I was kind of being groomed in a way to be this, what you call a bombshell-type of actor,” she added.

Johansson described how her roles developed as she grew older.

“I was playing the other woman and the objective desire and, you know, I suddenly found myself cornered in this place. Like, I couldn’t get out of it,” she said.

“But I think for that kind of bombshell, you know, that burns bright and quick and then it’s done and you don’t have opportunity up beyond that,” Johansson concluded.

Listen above via Table for Two podcast.