Scarlett Johansson

Biography

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Recent Role:: Herself on Live! with Kelly

Gender:: Female

Born:: 11-22-1984

Birthplace:: New York, New York, USA

AKA:: Scarlett Johanssen, Scarlett Johasson

A pouty and pretty strawberry blonde New Yorker who commenced her career a child actor with instincts, skills and a streetwise grace that far outpaced her age, Scarlett Johansson first came to attention playing the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw terrorized by Blair Underwood in "Just Cause" (1995). Having made her stage debut at age eight in 1993's "Sophistry" at Playwrights Horizons Theatre, the young player also studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. Her screen debut in Rob Reiner's disastrous "North" (1994) was less than memorable, but Johansson has maintained an even career,… More impressing with her fully-realized characterizations in nearly every showing.

She got noticed as one of Eric Schaeffer's wise charges in "If Lucy Fell" and took a co-starring role in the understated independent "Manny & Lo" (both 1996), a perfect vehicle for the actress to prove her talents. Johansson's finely crafted portrayal of Amanda (Manny), a rather sensible 11-year-old who escapes from a foster home and runs away with her 16-year old sister Laurel (Lo) earned her critical praise and led directly to her casting in the high profile but disappointing 1997 release "Home Alone 3" and the highly-anticipated romance "The Horse Whisperer" (1998). In the latter, Johansson landed the coveted role of Grace, a youngster who suffers a physically and emotionally debilitating riding accident. When her mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) turns to a horse trainer (Robert Redford) for assistance, romance blooms, and as Johansson turned what could have been little more than a two-dimensional plot device into a full-fledged character, an actress bloomed.

All but disappearing after this film-saving turn, the performer resurfaced three years later in the independent favorite "Ghost World" (2001), starring alongside Thora Birch as the more pragmatic of two best friends who have just graduated from high school and are making plans for the future amidst their own adventures, both real and invented. Snarky but somehow sweet, her Rebecca didn't get the screen time and controversial storyline of compatriot Enid (Birch) but nonetheless impressed in her smaller role. Later that year, she played a young Hungarian girl left behind when her refugee family flees their homeland in a Cold War political climate in "An American Rhapsody" and earned even more indie cred as a piano-playing teenager who catches the attention of a crafty barber (Billy Bob Thornton) in the Coen brothers' acclaimed period noir "The Man Who Wasn't There". Taking a break from this more heady material, Johansson would next battle giant spiders in the surprisingly fun sci-fi comedy "Eight-Legged Freaks" (2002).

Johansson's true breakout performance would come--like gangbusters--in "Lost in Translation" (2003), writer-director Sophia Coppola's wonderfully romantic film about Charlotte, an emotionally adrift young married tourist in her 20s, left to her own devices in Tokyo while her self-involved photographer husband is on a shoot, who meets and forms a deep, complex relationship with Bob Harris (Bill Murray) an equally disaffected 50-something Hollywood actor. The actress--only 18 during filming--is a revelation in the picture, displaying a rare, multilayered chemistry with Murray despite their age difference. Their rapport, a first tenative, then confident and cozy and then suddenly awkward and sexual, fuels the movie and carries many scenes completely without dialogue. Her subtle yet knockout performance, wildly praised by critics, was posied to rocket Johansson to new career heights. Hot on the heels of that role, Johansson also dazzled audiences in the indie "Girl With a Pearl Earring" (2003), a speculative account of the life of Griet, a 16-year-old girl who appears in Johannes Vermeer's (Colin Firth's) most famous painting. As a result of her two strong 2003 performances, at age 19 Johansson received a pair Golden Globe nominations--one for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama (for "Girl With a Pearl Earring") and another for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (for "Lost In Translation").

Johansson's next vehicle, made before her big breakout, was the limp teen caper movie "The Perfect Score" (2004) in which she played the thrillseeking, daddy-loathing member of a gang of high school students plotting an ambitious scheme to swipe the key to the SAT exam, and she voiced Mindy in the animated "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" (2004). She was better served with a pair of challenging roles released simultaneously at the end of 2004: first, she added depth to her supporting role as the daughter of a middle-aged ad salesman (Dennis Quaid) who becomes involved with her father's new young boss (Topher Grace) in writer-director Paul Weitz's adult comedy "In Good Company"; next, she played the headstrong teen Pursy Will, who returns to her late mother's home to unexpectedly share it with a pair of booze-soaked intellecutal boarders (John Travolta and Gabriel Macht) for the Southern-influenced character drama "A Love Song for Bobby Long." In both films Johansson's potent combination of adolencent freshness and wise-beyond-her-years maturity helped breath a compelling realism into her roles.

Johannson next tried the sci-fi action genre with director Michael Bay's "The Island" (2005), playing Jordan Two Delta, a woman living in an orderly envrionment in a post-Apocalyptic world hoping to win relocation to the only remaining pure bio-zone on the planet, only to discover her world is a facade for a more sinister scenario.

Scarlett Johannson is the next big actress, at the age of 21 she was a bright career ahead of her.

Photos

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Scarlett Johansson attends the Dolce & Gabbana Spring/Summer 2012 fashion show as part Milan Womenswear Fashion Week on September 25, 2011 in Milan, Italy.

Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson The 83rd Annual Academy Awards on February 27, 2011 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.

Scarlett Johansson arrives at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards held at the Kodak Theatre on February 27, 2011 in Hollywood, California.

Scarlett Johansson arrives at the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton hotel on January 16, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California.

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