Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in Manhattan, New York City, to architect Karsten Johansson and producer Melanie Sloan. Her father is Danish, and her mother came from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from the Bronx. Johansson has an older sister, Vanessa, a twin brother, Hunter, and half-siblings from her father’s earlier marriage. She attended the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan, where she trained alongside performers. Her screen debut came in the 1994 fantasy comedy North, directed by Rob Reiner. In 1996, she played Amanda in Manny & Lo, a film about two sisters who flee their troubled home; her work drew attention from critics. She received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for The Horse Whisperer (1998), in which she played Grace MacLean, a teenager injured in a riding accident. Johansson shifted decisively into adult roles with Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003). As Charlotte, a young American in Tokyo, she formed an uneasy, intimate friendship with Bob Harris, played by Bill Murray. The performance earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. That same year, she appeared in Girl with a Pearl Earring as Griet, the fictional maid who becomes Vermeer’s subject; the film was adapted from Tracy Chevalier’s novel. In 2005, she joined Woody Allen’s Match Point as Nola Rice, an aspiring actress whose affair with Chris Wilton drives the thriller’s plot. Her later collaborations with Allen included Scoop and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She also played the singer Silken Floss in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006) and recorded the album Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008), built around Tom Waits songs. Her longest-running blockbuster role is Natasha Romanoff, the spy known as Black Widow in Marvel’s films. She first appeared as the character in Iron Man 2 (2010), then returned in The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Black Widow (2021) placed Romanoff’s story after Civil War and before Infinity War, introducing her estranged sister Yelena Belova. Johansson received two Academy Award nominations in 2020: Best Actress for Marriage Story and Best Supporting Actress for Jojo Rabbit. In Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, she played Nicole, whose divorce from Charlie, portrayed by Adam Driver, exposes conflicts over their son. In Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, she played Rosie, the mother hiding a Jewish girl in Nazi-era Germany. She won a BAFTA.