＂It Was Transformative For Me＂ - Scarlett Johansson On Working With Robert Redford

Oh, there you go! I wasn't sure where to go. Right there. Okay. Welcome back, everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, my first guest tonight is an actor you know from Marriage Story, Black Widow, and Jurassic World Rebirth. She's now making her directorial debut with Eleanor the Great. Please welcome back to The Late Show, Scarlett Johansson. Welcome back. Well, thanks for having me. It's always nice to have you here. I feel like it's been a minute. It has been a minute. You've been on more than once before this, but it has been a little bit. In fact, do you know the first time you were on the show? The first time I was on the show? I feel like it was your second show. It was my second show. How was it? We eventually figured it out. You were great. Here you are. This is 1,701 shows ago. There you are. You have not changed at all, and I'm going to say neither have I. There you go. No comment. Okay. I need your moisturizer routine. Robert Redford passed away last week, and I never got a chance to even meet the fella. He's such a towering figure. You got to work with him. I did, yes. When you were only 12. I was 12, yes. What were you doing? We made a film called The Horse Whisperer, which Bob directed and starred in. Look, Bob. You get to call him Bob. I get to call him Bob, yes. Did you call him Bob then? I actually had a nickname for him that was Bowie, which is something that I don't think I've ever told anybody, but now I've told everyone. Why Bowie? I don't know. I mean, I was 12. Wow. Not Mr. Redford? No. He was such a warm, kind, patient, generous, wonderful man. And he would take so much time with me every day. He was also the director. He was the director. So I got to work with him as an actor, which was extraordinary. And he was just so warm. And we have a very special relationship in the film, the characters do, where he really actually therapizes my character. And he, in real life, had that type of persona, just so calm and kind and patient. And he would sit and he would wait. He would talk me through the scene. Every scene that we would do, he would talk me through where my character had been through up until that point. And it was like he had all the time to do that. And it was, it really, you know, it made, I had a, it was transformative for me. I had a complete understanding of, oh, this is actually a craft and something you get better at and understand more the more you put into it. That was all because of Bob. Mr. Redford slash Bowie. Bowie was a wonderful man. That's lovely. That's a lovely memory. Now you're directing your first feature, Eleanor the Great, which is in theaters on Friday. Yeah. Here you are directing that. I like props. I like visual aids. There you go. Oh, my God. There you are in full, in full director mode. That's proof that I directed the film. Exactly. Yeah. And you got the things around your neck and you're making this gesture with your hand. I'm basically just ordering a sandwich. Like, what do you want in your sandwich? But decisively, decisively, when did you, when did it occur to you like, oh, I want to be a director. This is a goal. Well, I actually, it was when I was working with, with Bob. You mean Bowie? That's right. You called him that too. Yeah. I remember seeing him on the set, you know, he would have those intimate conversations with me. Then he would be, you know, coordinating a huge scene with our amazing first AD Joe Reedy and Bob Richardson, our DP. And it was like, that job seems pretty interesting. I'd like to do that job someday. And then I spent many years being like, who would ever want that job? It's, you're basically just answering questions. Well, that's it. I'm just curious. I like to ask directors this question. I especially like to ask actors of great note, like yourself, who end up being directors. What did you, as an actor, what do you want from a director? Oh, gosh. What do I want from a director? I think curiosity, you know, that's what I like. What do you mean? Like, how might a director exhibit that with you as an actor? I think it's about, you know, we, this is a collaborative, you know, effort to, I'm here as an actor and I'm trying to understand, like, what your vision is, director of this film. And how can I, like, serve what your vision is? And then the curiosity of, you know, what if we tried this? Or I have an idea, you know, that's totally outside of the box. Like, could this be something that we could explore? And just the playfulness, I think, and openness to the collaboration, ideas, like, following a scene, you know, when it goes a certain way that's unexpected. Discoveries and stuff like that. Yeah, all of that stuff. Anything surprise you about it? Like, the thing, like, oh, I did not expect this part of the job. It must take a million decisions an hour. A lot of decisions. That you can't go back on. You can't, well, sometimes you can. Right. That's money, probably. Yeah, it's money and time. Yeah. Sometimes you have to go back on decisions. Sometimes you've made a decision so strong and then you get to that moment and it's like, oh, crap, I can't use any of that. You know what I mean? Like, it's a whole new bag you have to problem solve on the spot. But I think it's, I didn't realize how, it can be kind of a lonely job, weirdly, because you're there, you know, first thing in the morning. It's just with you all the time and you're the last person to leave and, unless you're Michael Bay. But, no, but you. I have a follow-up question. Which I won't ask for your sake. I know, I love Michael Bay. But he knows when to go home. Yeah, he does. No, but I think it weirdly feels like, you know, you're kind of on an island a little bit sometimes. And that can be, yeah, it can be a little challenging. But you find comfort in the fact that, you know, the whole crew is there waiting for answers that you have to give them. And it was a wonderful experience. I loved it. Did you get any advice from any of the great directors you've worked with? Like, you've worked with Christopher Nolan and Sofia Coppola and Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson. Did you call them up and say, what do I do? No, I should have, though. I think, you know, honestly, I've worked with so many amazing directors. And I've worked with a lot of directors that are actors as well. And I think, you know, just when I worked with Jon Favreau, we've worked together a couple of times. But we did, the second Iron Man was the first time we got to work together. And the cast was really stacked with a very diverse group of actors in the way that they approached their work. You know, like Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell and Robert, of course, and Gwyneth Paltrow. It was a lot of different styles. And I was like, how do you go in between all of us? You know, like, what is the, we're all such different actors and how do you approach it? He was like, I just, I'm sort of like a therapist. I just kind of become the person. I understand what the vocabulary is that the other person needs to, you know, get to where they're going. Thank you, Gwyneth. Let's follow that feeling. There you go. Well, Robert, we've made some great progress today. Let's take it up next week. We have to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more Scarlett Johansson, everybody. Stick around.