Aspiring tree Scarlett Johansson frequently goes against the grain of progressive discourse about her industry (who could forget her misadventures in casting?), and here she goes again. “I love Woody,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. She was referring, of course, to Woody Allen, a director that she worked with several times in the past and who is essentially a pariah at this point, with Amazon having shelved his film A Rainy Day in New York and multiple actors publicly refusing to work with him. Dylan Farrow’s allegation that Allen, her adoptive father, molested her was revisited by the public and reiterated by Farrow in the wake of MeToo.
Anyway, Johansson’s Johanssoning. “I believe him, and I would work with him anytime.”
Furthermore:
Johansson continues: “I see Woody whenever I can, and I have had a lot of conversations with him about it. I have been very direct with him, and he’s very direct with me. He maintains his innocence, and I believe him.” Asked if this position feels fraught to express in a cultural environment where there is a new and powerful emphasis on believing women’s allegations, Johansson says, “It’s hard because it’s a time where people are very fired up, and understandably. Things needed to be stirred up, and so people have a lot of passion and a lot of strong feelings and are angry, and rightfully so. It’s an intense time.”
If you still care about Johansson after that, you may be interested to know that she is earning more than $15 million for the upcoming Black Widow movie (“I will say that, yes, I’m on an equal playing field with my male cohorts”) and that she apologized to Rebecca Keegan, who wrote the THR piece, for giving a “farty” answer to one of her questions. Regarding representation in Hollywood, especially the latest flap over her now aborted plan to play a trans man in Rub & Tug, Johansson told THR, “There’s other voices that have more to say on this subject that probably need a microphone,” she says. “Yeah. I think I’m done speaking on that subject.” Imagine!