(Credits: Far Out / Olivier Vigerie / Hans Lucas)
Sun 2 November 2025 15:15, UK
“I’m convinced it will be the death of me,” Scarlett Johansson said as she prepared to start working on a new project, which is a cheery way to talk about a new job.
Making a movie must be hard. There are months and months of preparation that go into it behind the scenes, long before the set has even been built, the costumes made, or the cast has even met. Before all of that, they spend ages mentally preparing, figuring out their character as well as doing the basics of learning their lines.
However, once filming starts, it’s all go. It’s a hectic few weeks or months as each scene is worked through and ticked off. But once it’s done, it’s done.
Johansson is a pro at that by now. She’s starred in over 60 movies, so she’s well versed in making a film, in preparing for it and then navigating life on a set. She’s used to living her life around it and by now likely knows how much energy any given project is going to zap from her, knowing how to rest enough to manage it all.
Still, it must be hard, but as Johansson found out, theatre is harder.
Imagine the process of making a film, of diving into the character and working through their story and trials, getting deep in the emotions and surrendering yourself to them. Then imagine doing that again and again and again, every single night, sometimes even twice. That’s what stage actors have to do, as the schedule is even more gruelling as they go over the same scenes on repeat every day.
For a lot of actors, that’s where they begin. Growing up in Manhattan, Johansson did exactly that as she spent her childhood doing acting and dancing lessons as if she were going to be the next big musical theatre star. As a kid, she starred alongside Ethan Hawke in an off-Broadway production and then went on to study at the famed Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute before switching her focus to film.
However, in 2013, she returned to her roots in a revival of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof on Broadway. Instantly, she was reminded how hard that life is, both due to the schedule but also the role she was now going to play.
“The last time I found my way onto Broadway it was such a fresh and amazing experience…For this play, it’s going to be hard to live that many weeks in a state of embarrassment and regret and self-loathing and desperation and all the things the character has gone through,” she said. She played Maggie, an unfulfilled housewife dealing with her father’s illness and forced to stay in an unhappy marriage in order to save them all from poverty.
Starring down the barrel of a three-month run embodying an emotionally taxing character, Johansson was mentally preparing more than preparing her lines. “To live that eight times a week for two hours each time and then all of a sudden Monday comes around and you find the theater closed—you say to yourself, Oh, what is different about today? Oh, right, I haven’t been in an emotional turmoil for 24 hours,” she said about how weighty the job is.
It’s a strange way to live, as she added, “I think it’s just not a natural state to be in, to constantly dig up what stirs and disturbs you and air it all out for everyone to see, so to speak.”
More so than any movie, she knew that this Broadway role would completely wipe her out, stating, “The preparation for such a project is like you have to have a huge surgery or something and you’re going to be out of commission for six months.”
Related Topics