Scarlett Johansson has no regrets over working with controversial director Woody Allen.
Scarlett Johansson has no regrets over working with controversial director Woody Allen.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the 34-year-old actress discusses working with Allen on a number of films, including 2005's Match Point and 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The recent #MeToo and Time's Up movements have shed a new spotlight on allegations against Allen made by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow -- whose mother is actress Mia Farrow -- who has long alleged that Allen molested her when she was seven years old. Allen, who has never been charged with a crime regarding the alleged incident, has repeatedly denied the claims.
Although multiple actors who have worked with Allen -- including Michael Caine and Timothée Chalamet -- have since distanced themselves from the 83-year-old director, Johansson strongly defends him.
"I love Woody," she says. "I believe him, and I would work with him anytime."
Johansson says she is still in touch with Allen, and that she has talked openly with him about the allegations.
"I see Woody whenever I can, and I have had a lot of conversations with him about it," she shares. "I have been very direct with him, and he's very direct with me. He maintains his innocence, and I believe him. 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."
Johansson has been an outspoken Time's Up supporter -- at last year's Women's March in Los Angeles, she publicly slammed James Franco for wearing a Time's Up pin at the 2018 Golden Globes after a Los Angeles Times report came out featuring multiple women accusing the actor of sexually inappropriate and exploitative behavior, which he's denied. Johansson still stands by the movement -- a "unified call for change from women in entertainment for women everywhere" vowing to combat sexual harassment in all working environments -- today.
"It was almost like you found something you didn't even realize you needed," Johansson tells The Hollywood Reporter of the movement. "It was when I first understood what the word 'triggering' actually meant. Now it's part of the zeitgeist, but it was like, 'Oh. Oh, the thing I'm feeling. That's what triggering means.' I didn't know. Suddenly, you didn't have to take it anymore."
Johansson is currently promoting her highly anticipated drama, Marriage Story -- in which she and Adam Driver play a couple going through a divorce -- which she says she decided to take on while she was going through a real-life divorce from her second husband, Romain Dauriac. These days, she is happily engaged to Saturday Night Live star Colin Jost. She recalls meeting 37-year-old Jost on SNL when he wrote a Teen Mom spoof that she starred in.
"It was some dumb parody that he had written, and he was in there partly directing this segment we had to do," she remembers. "That's my first memory of him. He seemed very confident at the time. I don't know if he felt that way, but in that environment, if you're not confident as a writer, your stuff just never gets produced."
She says that despite her and Jost's fame, the two are able to maintain their privacy.
"I insist upon it," she stresses. "You have to carve out that life for yourself. I don't engage in social media. I'm a very private person. If you ever see a paparazzi photograph of me, know that I was definitely being harassed and having a horrible day, and my daughter [Rose, whom she shares with Dauriac] was being harassed."
ET last spoke to Johansson at San Diego Comic-Con in July, where she talked about ushering in the MCU's female future with a standalone Black Widow film. Watch the video below for more:
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