Scarlet Johansson Feels Like Hollywood “Groomed” Her As A “Bombshell-Type” Actress In Her Early Career

Scarlett Johansson hasn’t shied away in recent months from sharing frustrations about being typecast in blonde bombshell roles early in her career. Now, EW reports the actress brought up the topic again on the latest episode of the “Table For Two With Bruce Bozzi” podcast. In short, she felt Hollywood wanted to sexualize her as an “ingenue” the minute she turned 18, and she couldn’t outrun those parts for years.

READ MORE: Scarlett Johansson Says She Was “Pigeonholed” Into “Hypersexualized” Roles Earlier In Her Career

“I did “Lost in Translation” and “Girl With A Pearl Earring” — by that point I was 18, 19 — and I was coming into my own womanhood and learning my own desirability and sexuality,” Johansson said on the podcast. “I think because of that trajectory that I’d been sort of launched towards, I really got stuck in this — and, part of my management at the time, that was a big part of it, my agency and all that stuff — but I was kind of being groomed, in a way, to be what you call a bombshell-type of actor.”  

In Sofia Coppola‘s film, 17-year-old Johansson plays a young woman in Tokyo who forms a platonic connection with Bill Murray‘s aging actor. Meanwhile, in “Girl With A Pearl Earring,” the actress plays a farm maiden who becomes the subject of Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting. “I was playing the other woman and the object of desire,” Johannson continued. “I suddenly found myself cornered in this place and I couldn’t get out of it.” Other roles from that time for Johannson that fit the blonde bombshell model include three Woody Allen movies: 2005′ “Match Point,” 2006’s “Scoop,” and 2008’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

In October, Johannson also commented on her early career roles on Dax Shepard‘s “Armchair Expert” podcast, saying she “definitely was in different situations that were not age-appropriate.” “Because I think everybody thought I was older and I’d been [acting] for a long time and then I got kind of pigeonholed into this weird hyper-sexualized thing,” she said on Shepard’s show. “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, I guess.'”

Johansson’s recent roles don’t have the same hypersexualized elements as her earlier films. Films like Noah Baumbach‘s “Marriage Story” and Taika Waititi‘s “Jojo Rabbit” saw her take on more nuanced, maternal parts than the ones she describes above. She also received Academy Award nominations for both those movies. And catsuit aside, Johannson’s longtime role as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in the MCU isn’t precisely a bombshell role, either. So, it’s safe to say as the actress raises her two children and her married life with “SNL” “Weekend Update” co-host Colin Jost that Johannson’s days as Hollywood’s “ingenue” are over.

Upcoming roles for Scar Jo include Wes Anderson‘s “Asteroid City” and “Project Artemis” with Channing Tatum for Apple.