Scarlett Johansson Reveals What Threatened Her Career: 'It Was Scary'

Scarlett Johansson opened up about feeling threatened about her career when she was young because of getting "hypersexualized" and "pigeonholed."

"I kind of became objectified and pigeonholed in this way where I felt like I wasn't getting offers for work for things that I wanted to do," the 37-year-old actress told host Dax Shepard on his podcast, "Armchair Expert."

Johansson began her career as a child star in 1994 with the movie, titled "North," where she played Laura Nelson's character. However, she got success at the age of 17 when she worked in 2003's "Lost in Translation" opposite Bill Murray. In this movie, she played the character named Charlotte, who was in her mid-20s.

The actress recalled that following this role, everyone thought she was much older than her age.

"I remember thinking to myself, 'I think people think I'm 40 years old.' It somehow stopped being something that was desirable and something that I was fighting against," she explained. "Because I think everybody thought I was older and that I'd been [acting] for a long time, I got kind of pigeonholed into this weird hypersexualized thing."

Johansson noted at the time she thought her career was over. She admitted the time was "scary" for her as she used to get thoughts how people might think she was "much older" than her actual age.

"It was like, 'That's the kind of career you have, these are the roles you've played.' And I was like, 'This is it?'" The runway is not long on that, so it was scary at that time," she added. "In a weird way, I was like, 'Is this it?' I attributed a lot of that to the fact that people thought I was much, much older than I was."

She also spoke about the young actors these days, who were "thankfully" allowed to play different characters and their roles were "much more dynamic."

Considering Johansson's upcoming projects, she will be next seen in a romantic comedy movie, "Asteroid City," which is helmed by director Wes Anderson. The flick will also star Margot Robbie, Maya Hawke and Tom Hanks. It is expected to release later this year.

The actress will also feature in the movies like "My Mother's Wedding" and "Project Artemis."

On the personal front, Johansson married comedian Colin Jost in 2020. She was previously married to journalist Romain Dauriac from 2014 to 2017 and actor Ryan Reynolds from 2008 to 2011.