Scarlett Johansson Bio
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson is an American actress and singer who has built one of the most versatile careers in modern Hollywood. Born on November 22, 1984, in New York City, she has spent more than three decades in film, television, and theater, earning acclaim for both indie dramas and blockbuster franchises. Her films as a leading actress have grossed over $15.4 billion worldwide, making her the highest-grossing lead actress in history.
Over the course of her career, Johansson has collected a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, along with nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. Time magazine named her to its Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2021 and 2025. She is also widely recognized as a brand endorser and a prominent supporter of charitable causes.
Early Life and Background
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Her father, Karsten Olaf Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, making her the granddaughter of Ejner Johansson, an art historian, screenwriter, and film director of Swedish descent. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, is a New Yorker who has worked as a producer, and the family is of Jewish heritage with roots in Poland and Russia. Johansson holds dual American and Danish citizenship.
She grew up alongside an older sister, Vanessa, who is also an actress, an older brother named Adrian, a twin brother named Hunter, and an older half-brother named Christian from her father’s first marriage. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen, and she was particularly close to her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Sloan, whom she considered her best friend. Interested in the spotlight from an early age, Johansson often staged song-and-dance routines for her family and was especially fond of musical theater.
As a child, Johansson practiced acting by staring into the mirror until she made herself cry, inspired by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis. She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and auditioned for commercials before shifting her focus to film and theater. She also studied at the Professional Children’s School, a private institution for aspiring child actors in Manhattan, where she made her first stage appearance in the off-Broadway play Sophistry with Ethan Hawke.
Path to Acting
At age nine, Johansson landed her first paid role as a sketch character on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and soon made her film debut as John Ritter’s daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). She went on to play minor roles in films such as Just Cause (1995), If Lucy Fell (1996), and the horror film Home Alone 3 (1997). Her first leading role came as Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996), where she starred alongside her brother Hunter and earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Lead Female.
Her profile grew further with a turn opposite Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer (1998), and she gained wider recognition for playing a cynical outcast in the cult favorite Ghost World (2001). That role earned her a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress and drew praise from critics who highlighted her sensitivity and emotional depth. After graduating from the Professional Children’s School, she applied to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts but decided to focus on film after being rejected.
Scarlett Johansson Career
Early Career (1994–2002)
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Johansson built a reputation as one of Hollywood’s most promising young talents. Her work in Manny & Lo (1996) and The Horse Whisperer (1998) established her as a serious dramatic actress, while a Chicago Film Critics Association nomination for Most Promising Actress signaled growing industry recognition. Critics consistently noted a maturity and emotional intelligence that set her apart from her peers.
Her early films also included The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), Eight Legged Freaks (2002), and supporting turns in films that allowed her to develop a comfort with genre storytelling. By the time she finished her teenage years, Johansson had already appeared in more than a dozen features and was being mentioned as a potential future star.
Breakthrough (2003–2009)
Johansson transitioned to adult roles with two films in 2003: Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, opposite Bill Murray, and Peter Webber’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, opposite Colin Firth. Her performance as a listless young wife in Lost in Translation won her the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, while her portrayal of the 17th-century servant Griet earned a BAFTA nomination. Both roles also brought Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress, establishing her as one of the most versatile performers of her generation.
She went on to star in Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005), earning Golden Globe and Chicago Film Critics Association nominations, and joined the Christopher Nolan thriller The Prestige (2006) opposite Hugh Jackman. She also began a long collaboration with Allen in films such as Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). In 2010, she made her Broadway debut in a revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.
Notable Works and Milestones
Johansson debuted as Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow, in Iron Man 2 (2010) and went on to reprise the role across eight Marvel Cinematic Universe films, including The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019), the second-highest-grossing film of all time. She earned two simultaneous Academy Award nominations in 2020, for Best Actress in Marriage Story and Best Supporting Actress in Jojo Rabbit, becoming one of the few actors ever honored with two Oscar nominations in the same year.
Scarlett Johansson Award Nominations
Over her career, Scarlett Johansson has earned nominations for two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, seven Critics’ Choice Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. She has also been nominated for Saturn Awards, Teen Choice Awards, People’s Choice Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards, reflecting the wide range of genres she has worked in. Her first two BAFTA nominations in the same category in 2003 also made her the first performer to win the BAFTA for Best Actress without a corresponding Oscar nomination since Maggie Smith in 1988.
Scarlett Johansson Awards Won
Among her most prestigious honors, Scarlett Johansson won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Lost in Translation in 2003, and she earned the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for A View from the Bridge in 2010. She has also won Best Actress at the Rome International Film Festival for Her (2013), the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for Her, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for Ghost World. She took home The Female Movie Star of 2021 at the 47th People’s Choice Awards for Black Widow.
Scarlett Johansson Family
Scarlett Johansson comes from a close-knit family with deep creative roots. Her father, Karsten Olaf Johansson, is a Danish-born architect, and her late maternal great-uncle, Phillip Schlamberg, was the last American pilot killed during World War II. Through her father, she is the granddaughter of the art historian, screenwriter, and film director Ejner Johansson. She has an older sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, an older brother named Adrian, a twin brother named Hunter, and an older half-brother named Christian.
Personal Life
Scarlett Johansson has been married three times. She was married to Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds from 2008 to 2011, to French journalist Romain Dauriac from 2014 to 2017, and to Saturday Night Live co-head writer Colin Jost in October 2020. She has a daughter named Rose, born in 2014 with Dauriac, and a son born in August 2021 with Jost. Johansson resides in New York and Los Angeles.
