There are a lot of reasons why getting older isn’t a lot of fun. When you’re an actress in Hollywood, getting older can be an especially frustrating experience, as there is a clear preference for younger actresses and a feeling that it’s easy to “age out” of the major roles. However, Scarlett Johansson doesn’t appear to mind getting older too much.
Speaking with InStyle, Johasson recently mentioned a conversation she had with her husband, Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost, about her directorial debut Eleanor the Great, which recently debuted at Cannes. She appreciates the way her life has changed at 40, and the fact that she’s still learning new things. She said:
When I would get home from work, I would say to Colin, ‘You know, it’s so exciting to be 40 and learn a new thing. Now I know how to make a movie like this. I know how to finish it. The process of sound mixing and coloring and editing. I didn’t know that before. And now I know how to do it.’
While acting is the part of the moviemaking process that we see, there are hundreds of people involved in a film production. Many actors just show up and do their job and don’t necessarily bother themselves with what’s going on around them. While bigger stars, like Scarlett Johansson, are likely more involved in finer details, there’s still a lot they don’t see.
Scarlett Johansson has certainly spent time behind the camera as a producer, but as a director, she has her hands directly in all facets of a film’s production. She likely understood what happened in departments like sound and editing, but had never actually seen how the work is done, or actually done it herself. Now she really knows how the work is done, and how all the people work after her job is usually done.
Learning something new is always interesting, but it’s certainly true that most of us do most of our learning when we’re young, and often stop learning anything significant as we get older. Johansson is embracing being older and learning new things.
The early reviews for Eleanor the Great indicate that while the film isn’t blowing people away, it’s a solid debut for Scarlett Johansson as a director. It certainly appears that if ScarJo wants to spend more time behind the camera, she will likely have that opportunity again. That means continuing to improve her new skills, which is almost as good as learning something new.
Of course, Scarlett Johansson isn’t planning to slow down in front of the camera anytime soon. She is starring in the upcoming Jurassic World: Rebirth, which certainly has the potential to launch a new franchise that could keep her busy for a while. Although if they need somebody to direct one of those films. I bet she’d love to learn how all the cool post-production CGI works.
