Directing feels pretty natural to me, says Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson relished making her directorial debut with 'Eleanor the Great', the new drama movie.
Scarlett Johansson found directing to be a "pretty natural" experience.
The 40-year-old actress has made her directorial debut with 'Eleanor the Great', a new drama movie starring June Squibb and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Scarlett has admitted to relishing the challenge.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: "I didn’t know what it would feel like at all, and I didn’t necessarily have the confidence that I would be able to direct actors.
"But then in doing it, I realised that I’m always working with actors. I’m working with directors and actors in the development stage, in the rehearsal process, in blocking and giving notes, taking this and applying that. That part of it felt almost immediately pretty natural."
Scarlett was convinced that she could direct 'Eleanor the Great' after reading the film's script.
The Hollywood star shared: "Basically never or very, very rarely have I read a script and thought, ‘Oh, I know how I can direct this.’ It doesn’t really happen to me.
"This script was so moving and it had such potential that, weirdly, I felt very certain that it was something I could be capable of doing."
Despite this, Scarlett found it tough to get the project off the ground.
Scarlett also acknowledged that she could have chosen an easier film for her directorial debut.
The actress-turned-director explained: "Things like this take forever to get made.
"It would be easier to make something that was the sequel of a $180 million movie or a genre movie that was subpar. To get much, much, much less money for an independent film with an original story that has a lead actor who was 94 was very, very, very challenging."
Scarlett also had a "crazy" experience during the film's shoot.
She said: "Every day the movie fell apart in 400 different ways."
Asked to elaborate on the specific challenges she faced, Scarlett replied: "Oh my God, so many different ways.
"It once looked like we were going to be able to get the majority of our money from an independent financing company and then right down to the wire, in order for them to make it, we would’ve had to completely dismantle the entire plot device that was driving the narrative engine of the film. It was crazy. At that point, everything just fell apart."
Meanwhile, June Squibb has revealed that she relished the experience of working with Scarlett.
The 95-year-old actress said: "She’s so down-to-Earth. She is so real. We really met on that level, the two of us, because we are both that way.
"With her knowledge as an actress, she knew immediately what I was doing, where I was going and how I was shifting everything. That’s wonderful because you don’t often have that. I’ve worked with wonderful directors that don’t have that kind of knowledge like Scarlett does."
