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"  Photo: Suzanne Tenner / Courtesy Fox Searchlight At the Ziegfeld Theatre last night, the stars of the new Hitchcock film gathered for the movie&amp;#039;s NYC premiere. The flick, which chronicles the making of the legendary thriller Psycho in 1960, features Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Toni Collette, and more. Scarlett Johansson, dressed in a green-and-black Rodarte dress and Gucci stilettos, plays Janet Leigh. She told ELLE.com. &amp;quot;I was happy to play somebody who was so beloved by fans, by anyone who came into contact with her,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;She was a wonderful mother and a beautiful actress. It was really nice to be able to come to work and play her every day.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Scarlett&amp;#039;s brilliant,&amp;quot; director Sacha Gervasi gushed. &amp;quot;She is obviously an extraordinary beauty and the movie star stuff is wonderful. But more importantly, underneath it is a brilliant actress. She&amp;#039;s being doing it for 12, 15 years. She&amp;#039;s so strong and so precise, and she takes it very seriously.&amp;quot; As with playing Leigh, Johansson continues to elevate her career with highly iconic roles. She won a Tony Award for her performance in the 2010 revival of Arthur Miller&amp;#039;s A View From the Bridge and is currently in rehearsals at the Richard Rodgers Theatre for a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams&amp;#039; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which premieres January 17. Johansson and Benjamin Walker are cast in the roles most famously played by Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in the 1958 film. She exclusively told ELLE.com about the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof rehearsals: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s only our second week, but it&amp;#039;s been an amazing experience,&amp;quot; Johansson said. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s challenging, but in the best possible kind of way.&amp;quot; Despite having established his reputation as one of the greatest directors in cinematic history, Hitchcock battled censors, self-doubt, compulsions, and insecurities, as he mortgaged both his home and his legacy in order to make Psycho. Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren are at the top of their substantial games as the bantering, bickering director and his wife, Alma Reville. They are inextricably devoted to each other and to movies. In many ways, the film belongs to Mirren, who plays a highly intelligent woman ahead of her time: a talented director, screenwriter and editor in her own right. &amp;quot;Alma was this fierce, energetic, tiny bird-like woman, who was the only one who could control him,&amp;quot; said Mirren. &amp;quot;I think it spoke volumes that the only daughter of Alfred Hitchcock [Patricia Hitchcock], wrote a book about her mother, not her father, and she called it Alma Reville, not Alma Hitchcock. She wanted to bring her mother out of the shadows and put her contributions in the spotlight.&amp;quot; Reville was not the only woman who supported Hitchcock&amp;#039;s vision. Toni Collette portrays his witty, indispensable assistant of many years, Peggy Robertson. She noted, &amp;quot;I loved playing such a strong, capable woman who was influential and helped his day unfold. I was a mini-Alma.&amp;quot; Hitchcock opens Friday, November 23.  Photo: Suzanne Tenner / Courtesy Fox Searchlight "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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