Exclusive: Scarlett Johansson Talks Her ‘Paper Tiger’ Transformation

Scarlett Johansson in 'Paper Tiger.'

Courtesy of Neon

James Gray was sure Scarlett Johansson would say no. “I didn’t think Scarlett Johansson had any interest in working with me on any level,” the acclaimed filmmaker says. “I don’t even know if she’s aware of this, but multiple times, I wanted to work with her. I’ve been kind of obsessed with working with Scarlett for a long time so I had total pessimism about it.” Listening in on an adjacent Zoom box, Johansson nods while holding her poker face like only great actors can. Then, when it’s her turn to respond, she smirks: “I won’t comment on the pessimism part…but James and I have met before to discuss different things, so he’s actually not being totally forthcoming. He did know that I was interested.”

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Gray clarifies: “I was extremely nervous. I was terrified that she was going to think it’s preposterous and silly.”

Then Johansson read the script for Paper Tiger, which debuts this weekend in Cannes. “I was like, ‘Oh, I know I can do this. I don’t necessarily know how I’m going to do it, but I know that there’s something here that I can do and that I can be additive,’” she says. “It had so many elements that I loved. It’s a big story inside of a small story.”

Johansson has made a habit of effortlessly mixing fizzy tentpole fare such as Jurassic World: Rebirth and Mike Flanagan’s upcoming take on The Exorcist — currently filming, and thereby preventing Johansson from attending the Paper Tiger premiere on the Croisette, she says — with challenging, chewy auteur-driven projects from the likes of Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson. Paper Tiger falls firmly in the latter category.

The drama stars Johansson and Miles Teller as Hester and Irwin Pearl, parents to two boys in late ‘80s New York, holding tight to the flicker of dreams, new and old, for bigger lives, as well as the crushing weight of the sense that they might be fading away. Irwin gets drawn into a sketchy new moneymaking scheme with his suave brother Gary (Adam Driver), leading to an unsettling encounter that places the family in serious danger.

Miles Teller, Adam Driver, Roman Engel, Gavin Goudey and Johansson in ‘Paper Tiger.’

Cannes Film Festival

Hester is the heart of this story: A stay-at-home mom determined to fight for more — and left to contend with a narrower set of options once tragic news sets in. “I liked the idea of Hester being feminine and soft and graceful because she has a lot of chutzpah inside her,” Johansson says. The star speaks with a movingly affectionate understanding of the character: “She loves fashion magazines and going to the movies — she loves romantic comedies and all things romantic — and window shopping. All of those things are such an important part of who she is and how she presents herself. She should be in the middle of her life and striving for more — vivacious and full of life. That’s how I envisioned her.”

Her approach hits its most poignant register, then, as bad news piles up: “Women give up their dream for their husband and take a step back, and the dream becomes more of a dream for their family. It’s so common. I’ve seen it in my friends, I’ve seen it in my family. I just know in my bones what that is — there’s a sadness about it and a beauty about it. It’s such a bittersweet thing.”

Paper Tiger is rich with the texture of life, and even as its suspenseful crime-drama architecture harkens back to Gray’s earlier work, the vivid, period-specific family portraiture is the main attraction here, showcasing his evolution behind the camera. “To be very pretentious about it, the intention was to try to make a very classical drama. The bonds of the film are both marital and familial, father and mother and son, two brothers, mother and daughter — it’s about very elemental bonds of human relationships,” Gray says. “People sometimes shit on that idea, ‘classical’ — they equate it with ‘old-fashioned,’ but the two are not the same thing. Internal conflict, struggle, love, emotion — that is never old-fashioned. That’s beautiful, that’s what it means to be a human being, and the minute that gets old-fashioned, you may as well just raise the white flag.”

Gray has long advocated for supporting this scope of cinema for theaters — Neon acquired U.S. rights just as its Cannes selection was announced — and has only leaned in more as his career has progressed. He went into Paper Tig