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"By now we all know that it&amp;amp;#8217;s not easy to grow up in front of the camera&amp;amp;#8212;Hollywood is riddled with examples of how it can all go terribly, horribly, shaved-headedly wrong. But Scarlett Johansson is an exception: a child-star success story, a happy-ending tale of how hard work and a level head can prevail in even the craziest of towns. True, she has an exceptionally appealing set of traits&amp;amp;#8212; a husky voice, porcelain skin and a logic-defying body that&amp;amp;#8217;s both curvy and petite&amp;amp;#8212;but she has never been one to assume that these were enough to land her a job. She appeared in her first film at age 10 and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role in Manny &amp;amp; Lo at age 12. That performance caught the attention of Robert Redford, who cast her in The Horse Whisperer (1998), and Sofia Coppola, who gave her a career-making role in Lost in Translation (2003). She has starred in at least one film every year since, including three from director Woody Allen. That&amp;amp;#8217;s not luck, people&amp;amp;#8212;that&amp;amp;#8217;s drive and determination. This year Johansson continued her workaholic tendencies&amp;amp;#8212;she was part of an all-star cast in He&amp;amp;#8217;s Just Not That Into You, completed filming Iron Man 2 and is now promoting an album of duets with Pete Yorn titled Break Up. She also found time to wage a cheeky counter-offensive against the tabloids for suggesting she&amp;amp;#8217;d crash-dieted to strip off weight for Iron Man 2. &amp;amp;#8220;If I were to lose 14 pounds,&amp;amp;#8221; Johansson wrote on The Huffington Post website, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;d have to part with both arms. And a foot.&amp;amp;#8221; Playing media offensive has also helped Johansson keep her private life&amp;amp;#8212;and marriage to fellow superstar Ryan Reynolds&amp;amp;#8212;private: &amp;amp;#8220;You don&amp;amp;#8217;t go to work and talk about your marriage,&amp;amp;#8221; she responds when pushed. But that&amp;amp;#8217;s the only time the actress bristles (understandably); otherwise she&amp;amp;#8217;s witty, self-deprecating and sharp. Over lots of iced teas in a Los Angeles heat wave, Johansson discusses relationships, the Hollywood weight police and her new career as a singer. GLAMOUR: Your album&amp;amp;#8217;s fantastic! How was it to work with Pete Yorn? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I&amp;amp;#8217;ve known him for a while. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve worked with both of his brothers, who are in the entertainment industry. One day Pete texted me out of the blue saying, &amp;amp;#8220;Hey, do you want to record an album?&amp;amp;#8221; I was like, Whoa, that&amp;amp;#8217;s a weird message. But I said, &amp;amp;#8220;Sure&amp;amp;#8212;why not?&amp;amp;#8221; GLAMOUR: How&amp;amp;#8217;d he know you sing? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: He didn&amp;amp;#8217;t! GLAMOUR: He just thought you would be good? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: He said he had some weird fever dream&amp;amp;#8212;and had this idea that we should do a duets album&amp;amp;#8230;. When I started singing along to the songs he was playing me, he said, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m really happy that you can sing!&amp;amp;#8221; [Laughs.] GLAMOUR: So would you like to do musical theater? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I would love to work on Broadway, but I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know that it would manifest itself in musical theater&amp;amp;#8230;. I have terrible stage fright that I&amp;amp;#8217;d have to get over. GLAMOUR: Really? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Crippling. Not as a kid. It came on when I was a teenager, and I think it somehow sticks with you. GLAMOUR: You&amp;amp;#8217;ve really grown up in front of the camera, but you didn&amp;amp;#8217;t seem to have an awkward phase. SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I was pretty awkward in The Horse Whisperer. I watch it now, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s painful. Did I go through a phase where I had cystic acne and greasy hair? No. But I certainly had an awkward phase. GLAMOUR: I don&amp;amp;#8217;t necessarily mean the cystic acne. I just mean the &amp;amp;#8220;I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know how to be in my own skin&amp;amp;#8221; phase. SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I never had that. I think that&amp;amp;#8217;s because I was an actor, and you have to be comfortable in your body. GLAMOUR: I read your piece [about body image and Hollywood] on The Huffington Post recently. Tell me what inspired you to write it. SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I was training for Iron Man 2, which was a lot of work, full-on. I wanted to do a lot of my stunts and to be believable as this superspy, so I started getting fit and eating well and feeling really good. But then there was this rumor mill cranking out stories that I had lost 14 pounds&amp;amp;#8212;I could never lose 14 pounds&amp;amp;#8212;and was on some miracle diet. I just thought it was ridiculous. I was working my ass off, but I was doing it on my own terms and certainly through no miracle diet. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to get caught up in that s&amp;amp;#8212;t&amp;amp;#8230;. I hate seeing these ridiculous articles where [tabloids] guess someone&amp;amp;#8217;s weight. But they approach it as fact! I&amp;amp;#8217;m sick of it as a woman&amp;amp;#8212;not just as a person on the other side of it. As a reader. I got fed up. GLAMOUR: How do you keep sane about the whole weight thing? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I want to look good, obviously. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to look at the screen and go, Oh, my skin looks terrible, or, I look exhausted. That&amp;amp;#8217;s why I take care of myself when I work&amp;amp;#8230;. But I don&amp;amp;#8217;t feel the obligation to be a specific weight. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t feel like I have to fit into a body that&amp;amp;#8217;s not my body. I have the body I have and I try to maintain it. GLAMOUR: A lot of actors aren&amp;amp;#8217;t able to [have that attitude]. SCARLETT JOHANSSON: If you open up a magazine and there&amp;amp;#8217;s a photograph of you with a giant red circle around your thigh, like, look at this cellulite, any person&amp;amp;#8212;I don&amp;amp;#8217;t care what you do&amp;amp;#8212;would be mortified. It&amp;amp;#8217;s no wonder people get crazy about it. GLAMOUR: So how do you avoid getting crazy about it? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: My parents never put a lot of pressure on us to be any kind of way&amp;amp;#8230;. I have [my] funny moments where I look at myself and think, Oh, this is a disaster. But you have to give yourself a reality check and go, All right, if I feel this way, I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to do something about it that&amp;amp;#8217;s healthy. I can&amp;amp;#8217;t look at somebody who is 6 feet tall and 120 pounds and say, I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to get that body. That&amp;amp;#8217;s just never going to happen. You have to work with what you&amp;amp;#8217;ve got. GLAMOUR:In a lot of your films over the years, you had a sexpot thing going on. When did that start? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: It was a weird phenomenon, but at the time, being 17, 18, 19, I kind of embraced it. You&amp;amp;#8217;re realizing your own sexuality at that time, and you&amp;amp;#8217;re kind of coming into your own womanhood, so it felt natural&amp;amp;#8230;. But I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think about being sexy, being seductive. What you don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to see is somebody trying to be sexy. That&amp;amp;#8217;s the most unsexy thing. GLAMOUR: You&amp;amp;#8217;ve done a lot for someone who is 25. What do you think has made you so successful at a young age? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I&amp;amp;#8217;m an actor for hire. It&amp;amp;#8217;s important not to forget that you&amp;amp;#8217;re disposable&amp;amp;#8230;.When you have that mentality, you fight for the jobs you want. GLAMOUR: Do you feel like you might have burnout at 30? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: You never know. I might open my own bakery! [Laughs.] The thing is, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know how to do anything else, other than things that relate to film. GLAMOUR: Well, speaking of things you&amp;amp;#8217;ve done at a young age&amp;amp;#8212;what made you decide to get married young? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I never really thought about getting married&amp;amp;#8212;it just kind of happened. It seemed natural, the right thing to do. It was kind of a celebration of the time. GLAMOUR: Does it feel different? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I think the only difference is that I&amp;amp;#8217;m kind of making my own little family now, which is funny. It&amp;amp;#8217;s like a little bit of a tribe. You hope that a relationship makes you better, that you learn things about yourself. You&amp;amp;#8217;ve had this one view, and now you have another view. I feel more confident to explore things within myself that I hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t thought about in the past&amp;amp;#8230;. My parents divorced when I was 13, so it was not the ideal representation of marriage. GLAMOUR: Is it weird seeing your husband on Letterman talking about you? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Yeah, it is weird, because I would never ask somebody about their marriage if I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t know them. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t profess to know anything about marriage that anybody else doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t know, or how to make it right. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to read about somebody who&amp;amp;#8217;s giving me relationship advice. So I try to keep some things for myself, to have a private life. Because that&amp;amp;#8217;s kind of all you have, really, isn&amp;amp;#8217;t it? When it comes down to what separates you from the next person. You don&amp;amp;#8217;t go to work and talk about your marriage. Why should I? GLAMOUR: Right. There are a lot of actresses who can&amp;amp;#8217;t make a move without the paparazzi following them. How have you avoided that? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: By not talking about my personal life! I think that makes a big difference. I go to work, I make movies, I publicize them. I hope people enjoy them. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not a relationship expert. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not a diet and health expert. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know anything except for movies, other than some Trivial Pursuit kind of information. GLAMOUR: Do you like the fashion component of your job? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: It&amp;amp;#8217;s a nice added plus. [Johansson appears in the new Dolce &amp;amp; Gabbana ads for the fragrance Rose The One.] One day my door buzzes, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s Domenico [Dolce] and Stefano [Gabbana]. They come in, and Domenico gets on his hands and knees and starts measuring me, and he&amp;amp;#8217;s going, &amp;amp;#8220;Shoulder to shoulder! Arm to elbow!&amp;amp;#8221; Next thing I know, I get a package. They whipped up all of these fabulous things for me. What girl wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t want that? GLAMOUR: Do you enjoy the red carpet? sj: I have a tumultuous relationship with it because I love to get ready for the red carpet, but being on it is very uncomfortable. It&amp;amp;#8217;s so freakish and weird. I get flop sweats, dry mouth, heart palpitations, allover panic! I did this movie with John Travolta, and every time I looked over at John on the red carpet, he looked so fabulous. So I said to him, &amp;amp;#8220;What do you do?&amp;amp;#8221; And he said, &amp;amp;#8220;I go to Hawaii in my mind.&amp;amp;#8221; GLAMOUR: So do you do that now? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I try to, but all I can see is a dark tunnel with a little white light at the end of it. And the little white light is finally getting into the theater and watching a movie. GLAMOUR: So what&amp;amp;#8217;s next for you? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to get some deep tissue massages. [Laughs.] No, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know, but I know myself, and if they ask me to work in two weeks, I&amp;amp;#8217;ll be like, OK. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have hobbies. If I go on vacation for too long I get anxious. GLAMOUR: Really, no hobbies? SCARLETT JOHANSSON: There are things I like to do, but I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have kids. So it&amp;amp;#8217;s not, I want to spend time with the kids. And it&amp;amp;#8217;s not like I&amp;amp;#8217;m whittling bowls&amp;amp;#8230;. I like to be productive. GLAMOUR: Well, that you are! Amy Larocca is a freelance writer living in New York City."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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