Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in New York City, the daughter of Karsten Johansson, a Danish architect, and Melanie Sloan, an American producer of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. She has a twin brother, Hunter Johansson (also an actor), and grew up in Manhattan and in Riverdale, the Bronx. She attended the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan and began auditioning and appearing in small roles from age nine. Her breakthrough came with The Horse Whisperer (1998), in which she held her own with Robert Redford at age 13, and Ghost World (2001, with Thora Birch) confirmed her as a serious young actor capable of handling demanding material. Lost in Translation (2003), Sofia Coppola's melancholy meditation on disconnection in which she starred opposite Bill Murray, is the film that established her as one of the most significant actors of her generation.
Johansson's decade from 2003 to 2013 was one of the most impressive in contemporary American cinema: Lost in Translation (2003), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003, as Vermeer's model), Match Point (2005, the first of her three Woody Allen films), The Prestige (2006, with Christopher Nolan), The Black Dahlia (2006), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008, earning her a BAFTA), He's Just Not That Into You (2009), and Iron Man 2 (2010, in which she first appeared as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow). She became a BAFTA Rising Star award winner and one of the most critically respected actors of her age group while simultaneously building toward the commercial dominance that the MCU would produce.
Scarlett Johansson's role as Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff across ten Marvel films from 2010 to 2021 made her the highest-grossing actress of all time (as of 2016, her films had collectively grossed over $14.3 billion worldwide). Her 2021 lawsuit against Disney over the hybrid theatrical/streaming release of Black Widow — which she argued breached her contract and cost her significant backend pay — was one of the most significant disputes between a major film star and a studio in recent years, and was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount that was widely reported as substantial. The lawsuit demonstrated a commercial and legal sophistication that matched her artistic credentials.
Marriage Story (2019), Noah Baumbach's devastating account of a marriage's dissolution, gave Johansson one of her finest dramatic performances as a New York stage actress whose marriage to a director is ending — the film's climactic argument scene, which she performed opposite Adam Driver, is one of the most emotionally raw scenes in recent American cinema. She received a Golden Globe nomination for the role. She married Ryan Reynolds in 2008 (divorced 2011) and comedian Colin Jost in 2020 (they have two children). She launched the skincare brand THE OUTSET in 2022. She received the BAFTA Rising Star award in 2004 and has been named to Forbes's highest-paid actresses list multiple times. She will voice the AI character in OpenAI's ChatGPT — a casting that generated controversy when OpenAI produced a voice resembling her without permission.
