Scarlett Johansson
Born in New York City on November 22nd, 1984, Scarlett Johansson is the youngest of four siblings -- she has an older brother and sister, as well as a twin brother. As might be expected of an acting prodigy, Scarlett had an unusually early interest in performing: she wanted to be an actress since age 3, and was acting professionally when she was only 8 years old. After taking classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute for Young People, Scarlett made her stage debut in the early 1990s in the off-Broadway production of
Sophistry, alongside Ethan Hawke.
Scarlett Johansson's first
film role came in 1994's
North, starring
Elijah Wood, another child star survivor. The following year she played
Sean Connery's daughter in the
thriller Just Cause, and then in 1996, she appeared in
If Lucy Fell and
Manny & Lo. For the latter film, Scarlett was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress in 1997. That year she added
Fall and
Home Alone 3 to her burgeoning list of credits.
scarlett in the horse whispererIn 1998, Scarlett's career reached new heights. Cast as Grace MacLean, a young girl who suffers a tragic equestrian accident in
The Horse Whisperer, Scarlett was generally acknowledged as the most promising part of an otherwise unenthusiastically-received film. The 13-year-old actress picked up a Hollywood Reporter YoungStar Award for her work. Ironically, Scarlett was given an "introducing..." credit in
The Horse Whisperer, even though she already had a half-dozen movies under her belt by then.
Building on the momentum of
The Horse Whisperer, Scarlett appeared in
My Brother the Pig (1999), and then co-starred with
Thora Birch in Terry Zwigoff's (
Crumb, Bad Santa) adaptation of the teen-angst comic book
Ghost World in 2000.
The next year she turned heads once again in a provocative role in the Coen brothers'
The Man Who Wasn't There. Also in 2001, Scarlett starred in
An American Rhapsody, a Hungarian film about a girl who escapes from behind the iron curtain in the 1950s. Such serious fare was offset in 2002, with Scarlett's turn in the B-monster movie,
Eight Legged Freaks.
scarlett was lost in translation But 2003 would prove to be Scarlett's most successful year yet. She starred in Sofia Coppola's
Lost in Translation as a young girl staying in Japan, who befriends a washed-up American actor, played by Bill Murray. Scarlett followed
Lost in Translation with
Girl with a Pearl Earring, in which she played the title role; a struggling servant girl who becomes drawn into the world of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Both roles landed Scarlett Best Actress Golden Globe nominations in 2004, as well as a Best Actress BAFTA Award (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) for
Lost in Translation.
With the 2004 teen comedy
The Perfect Score, Johansson has demonstrated once more that she can take on lighter fare as well as serious roles. But she's used to dichotomy: Scarlett divides her time between New York, where her father lives, and Los Angeles, where her mother looks after her business interests.
However impressive her successes to date, it's clear that Scarlett has a long and even more rewarding career ahead of her, with the upcoming releases of
A Long Song for Bobby Long,
A Good Woman and the comedy
Synergy.