It’s inarguable that Scarlett Johansson‘s had a fascinating and celebrated career. She spent much of the 2010s as one of the MCU’s biggest stars, and she’s also starred in critically-acclaimed and award-winning fare like Under the Skin and Marriage Story.
Where it all started, of course, was her star turn in Sofia Coppola’s 2003 flick Lost in Translation, a generational touchstone for millennials and a film that launched Scarlett to superstardom.
In a new interview with Variety, Scarlett addressed rumors that she had a “miserable” time while on set making the film — and she explained what it was really like for her, too.
“It wasn’t miserable,” she said. “It was challenging because I was very young and away from my high school boyfriend.”
“I was sort of isolated in that environment, and it was just hard work. Looking back on it, the whole thing felt like jet lag.”
Last year, Scarlett claimed that starring in Lost in Translation caused her to be “groomed” as a “bombshell” in Hollywood — and in this latest interview, she elaborated on how the film negatively affected the roles she was offered afterwards.
“It was hard to get out of that pigeonhole,” she says. “And I did films like He’s Just Not That Into You and movies that kind of continued that narrative. I couldn’t make any headway.”
During that time, Scarlett also was turned down for Gravity and Iron Man 2 — the latter of which she ended up starring in anyway, and which led to her substantial role as part of the MCU. But she also said that, prior to that breakthrough, she felt creatively stuck.
“The work I was being offered felt deeply unfulfilling,” she recalled. “I think I was offered every Marilyn Monroe script ever. I was like, ‘Is this the end of the road creatively?’”
Read the entire interview here.