9 to 5ish: Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson is one of the highest-paid actors in the world, and has starred in some of the highest-grossing movies of all time. But those career defining moments didn’t come easy. She’s had to reframe rejection, say “yes” without looking back, and fight against toxic behavior in the entertainment industry. This week, we’ll ask Scarlett how she had perspective even in the toughest moments – including not getting the original call to be Black Widow – and why she recently took the leap to start her own skincare business.

On Rejection

Scarlett: As an actor, you just get rejected all the time, but you build relationships with people. And I think it's important to keep that in mind, in every industry, that it's not a waste of time if you're making connections with people and learning and getting better. It's all time well spent.

On Career Transitions

Scarlett: So I actually, I had an opportunity to do a play in New York, which was “A View From The Bridge.” And I'd wanted to do theater for my entire career, but I had this opportunity to do Arthur Miller, which I was pretty excited about. And I knew that it was going to be with Liev Schreiber and I just thought, “I'm going to commit to this thing I've never tried.” And I remember I was so nervous that everybody would want me to fail. 

And I remember Liev Schreiber saying to me, “Firstly, everyone who's bought a ticket paid a lot of money for their ticket. They had dinner before they came to the show. They are excited for a night of theater. Like they want to be transported by you. They want us to win.” It was such a revelation for me. It was such a revelation and that whole experience was so inspiring and it was so fresh. And it was so risky. Every night, every show, it made me understand that I would wait for the riskier jobs and just go with things that were difficult and scary, or I would make them for myself.

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