Tony Award winner (for the 2010 play “A View from the Bridge”), eight-time Critics Choice Awards nominee and double Academy Award nominee Scarlett Johansson (who should’ve won for one of those two roles… I’ll get to that in a second) is one of the most successful actors of all-time at the box office. And it’s not just because she played Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow in all those blockbuster Marvel movies. Sony hopes her latest film, “Fly Me to the Moon” (opening July 12th — just in time for the 55th Anniversary of the Moon Landing) will be a summertime success.
My favorite Johansson performance is Rosie Betzler in 2019’s “Jojo Rabbit”. Her emotional, moving performance as Jojo’s mom in Taika Waititi’s memorable dramedy was the highlight of the film, as I told Waititi at the 2020 Critics Choice Awards. A close second is Charlotte in 2003’s “Lost in Translation” — the BAFTA Best Actress winning role that shot Johansson into stardom, opposite a fantastic Bill Murray in Sofia Coppola’s excellent romantic dramedy.
I enjoyed Johansson as Janet Leigh in 2012’s “Hitchcock”. The second half of 2017’s “Ghost in the Shell” was actually pretty good. And we can’t ignore Johansson’s voice work over the years, beginning with Princess Mindy in 2004’s “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie”. Close to a decade later, she returned to the booth to play Samantha in Spike Jonze’s “Her”, a vocal performance that earned her a place on the Best Supporting Actress Critics Choice Awards ballot. Johnasson followed that up with Kaa in 2016’s “The Jungle Book”, Ash in 2016’s “Sing” and 2021 sequel “Sing 2”, and Nutmeg in Wes Anderson’s 2018 stop-motion “Isle of Dogs”.
Next up, Johansson lends her voice to Elita One in Paramount’s CG “Transformers One”, out September 20th. And next year, she’s set to headline the latest revival installment in Universal’s “Jurassic” saga.