Scarlett in a black dress and red and black photo

Scarlett Johansson (born November 22, 1984 in New York, New York) is an American actress. Johansson's father was born in Denmark, and mother Melanie Sloan comes from a Bronx-bred Jewish family.[1] Johansson's maternal ancestors originally came from Poland. The granddaughter of writer Ejner Johansson, she graduated from The Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 2002.


Prepared for her role in Lost in Translation (2003) by living on Hokkaido with then boyfriend Faiz Ahmad.



"It's a great thing to get older and learn. I don't feel bound in any way by how many years I've lived. I identify just as much with my 86-year-old grandmother as I do with my sister."

"Well, you put a little piece of yourself into every character that you do. Even if you're playing some psychotic person, which of course I'm not, some part of you is in that character and it's hopefully believable. I always come back to the fact that my own instinct is better than something I build in my mind."

"Tons of that stuff comes to me, but a lot of it is awful. All these teenage slaying movies, and movies about girls that have deformities that become cheerleaders and then marry the prom king!"