Scarlett Johansson Once Revealed She Briefly ‘Hated’ Woody Allen After Miserable Love Scene
Scarlett Johansson and director Woody Allen have long held a close professional relationship. But Johansson once shared she wasn’t fond of a love scene she was convinced to do in one of Allen’s movies. So much so that Johansson hated Allen for it for the rest of the day it.
Woody Allen cast Scarlett Johansson in ‘Match Point’ because he thought she was sexy
Match Point was a 2005 crime thriller starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson. Originally, Kate Winslet was supposed to act opposite Myers. But Winslet would then turn down the role.
To cast Johansson, director Woody Allen had to study Johansson’s work in other movies. This was because the director admitted he wasn’t too much of a social person, so he didn’t enjoy meeting with actors personally to gauge their skills.
“I’m not a great social person. I don’t like to meet people, and it’s a very uncomfortable thing when an actor or actress comes in. They want to be liked and hired for the job; I’m meeting six of them and only one of them can have the job. So I usually try and cast from films and videos, and then when I pick a person I like, I take one live look just to make sure they are what I think they are,” Allen once told Total Film.
He used this same casting process to hire Johansson, who possessed many of the qualities he was looking for.
“I had seen her in Lost In Translation and Ghost World and thought she was beautiful, sexy, a wonderful actress – completely interesting on the screen. I just felt like many other people that she was a new, legitimate, authentic movie star who had burst onto the screen, but not in a superficial way – she had real depth to her,” he said.
Scarlett Johansson hated Woody Allen for making her film this scene
Johansson has filmed many love scenes in her long and prolific career. But the Black Widow star once admitted that her scene in Match Point was one that put her in a foul mood. It was because the conditions of the film wasn’t at all to Johansson’s liking.
“I was definitely miserable,” she once said according to People. “I mean, getting fully wet and drenched, especially when you’re wearing jeans, is like the most unpleasant thing, especially when you’re all nice and toasty, and they’re like, ‘We’re going to dump buckets of water on you.’ At first I was like, ‘I could just get wet in the rain.’ They were like, ‘We have to make you drenched.’ I really hated my costumer that day. I really hated Woody that day, too.”
It didn’t help that her co-star in Meyers ended up really hurting Johansson in the film too.
“I had, like, a swollen eye for a couple of days… [Jonathan] really bit my lip, actually — busted my lip open. And he sent me flowers the next day because he felt bad. It was so sweet,” she confided to PopWatch (via Entertainment Weekly).
Woody Allen wasn’t sure Scarlett Johansson took acting that seriously
Allen had a very high opinion of the Marriage Story actor. He even felt she could become one of Hollywood’s great actors if she didn’t follow the lifestyle other young actors did.
“I don’t want to read about her in the paper with this boyfriend or that boyfriend, or in rehab or taking pills,” Allen once said about her according to Page Six.
However, the Oscar-winner also wasn’t sure she was taking acting as seriously as she could’ve at the time.
“I don’t think she’s always made great choices. She has to take her acting seriously . . . the way someone like Meryl Streep did it,” he added.
