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The director: While many artists covet Hollywood starlets for their videos, most prefer them to be in front of the camera. Singer/songwriter Jessie Baylin, however, enlisted Scarlett Johansson for the other (less-photogenic) side of the lens. Johansson makes her directorial debut with this video for “Hurry Hurry,” the first single off Baylin’s third album, Little Spark. Though the movie star is a neophyte in the director’s chair, she is certainly no stranger to music videos. She has made a couple for her own songs and starred in Justin Timberlake’s sexy, cinematic clip for “What Goes Around…Comes Around.” Why did she pick Baylin’s song for her first directing project? Because the two women are old pals who attended New York’s Professional Children’s School together. “One of the greatest gifts of growing up with Jessie has been watching her develop as a musician,” director Scarlett Johansson told MTV Hive.
The video: It’s simple. Just one continuous shot of Baylin, clad all in black, walking back and forth on the gray, rain-streaked pedestrian path of the Manhattan Bridge. But bathed in warm, soft light against the city’s steely skyline, Baylin glows — at times literally. A visual effect makes it appear, occasionally, like trails of light are shimmering off her golden curls or are following the movements of her limbs. It’s a bit like an acid flashback, but it is also a necessary arty flourish for the otherwise straightforward clip.
The song: It’s hard to not hear “Hurry Hurry” as autobiography. Newly Nashville-based for her husband (Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill,) Baylin has written a swoony track that marries hazy, orchestral melodies with Baylin’s smoke-and-honey voice front-and-center. A whimsical harp that introduces and closes the track adds levity, keeping the song from getting bogged down in its subject’s sentimental reality.
It’s easy to talk about Baylin in terms of her famous friends, thanks to her bold-faced best friend and her platinum-selling partner, not to mention collaborators like Richard Swift, who provided the dreamy arrangements for “Hurry Hurry” and the rest of Little Spark. But that would be unfair to Baylin. She’s more than just someone with an enviable address book. As “Hurry Hurry” proves, she’s a deft storyteller who can juggle detailed specificity with plainspoken prose and a gifted vocalist who adds the peppery polish of vintage country singers to her modern melodic sensibility.
Scarlett Johansson lets loose in some unlikely places, even 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! In an appearance on Anderson Cooper’s eponymous talk show, the 27-year-old actress opened up about why she loves the White House Correspondents Dinner.
“They call it the prom — Washington’s prom,” she said. “For me, I feel kind of like a chaperone. [I just] enjoy it and don’t have to be completely involved.”
“We’re just expected [as entertainers] to get drunk and make fools of ourselves,” she quipped. “The Republican senator’s the one that’s supposed to be like on the straight and narrow.”
Cooper, however, doesn’t share Johansson’s enthusiasm for the event. “They’re people I have to interview at night on CNN, so I don’t want to interact with these people,” he admitted.
At the White House dinner this spring, a witness told Us Weekly Johansson and then-beau Sean Penn made out “right as the main course of the dinner was being put on the table.” Johansson even sat in Penn’s lap during part of the meal.
After refusing to wear makeup in We Bought a Zoo, Scarlett Johnasson reveals that when she’s not portraying a character, she’s actually quite fond of putting on a face.
“I always like to put a little bit of makeup on,” she tells Style.com. “I’m not the kind of person that just slops around in sweatpants. I like to feel a little more together — you never know who you’re going to see out there!”
“My absolute must-have is a really rich and vibrant red lipstick,” she reveals of the look that has become synonymous with her red-carpet bombshell motif. “I always keep red lipstick in my bag because I never know when I might show up to an event and be completely underdressed. I feel like red lipstick is the cure-all for everything.”
Other things that make her feel beautiful include reverting to her natural hair color (“I’m naturally blonde so I feel most like myself when I’m blonde”) and a good, old-fashioned honey facial. Yup, a honey facial. “I use Manuka honey,” she reveals. “You just warm your face so that your pores are open (you can steam your face right after getting out of the shower), and then you just take a spoon and apply the honey directly to your face and leave it for 10 to 15 minutes.”
The result? “It really adds an amazing glow and your skin is so soft afterwards. It pulls out the impurities.”
For an especially private person, Scarlett Johansson has an especially difficult time seeing her life played out publicly.
So, imagine her horror at reading tabloid headlines about her divorce from Ryan Reynolds, her dating and breaking up with Sean Penn, her time in Paris with Kieran Culkin and in Manhattan with Justin Bartha – not to mention the nude photos from her hacked cellphone. Those went viral.
“The hardest part is actually going through whatever hardship you’re facing. Going through it in public is the added unfortunate thing,” the actress, 27, tells USA Today while promoting her new movie with Matt Damon, We Bought a Zoo.
Still, “There’s nothing you can do about that,” she says. “It’s just nice to have kind of a blinder up in that regard. It helps keep you sane. I can’t follow all that stuff. It’s too exhausting.”
Answering the very direct question of whether she would marry again, the actress replies: “I have no idea. I don’t X things off. I don’t know. Life is long.”
She does say she would like to have a family of her own, when she’s older, but for now, her work will suffice. “It’s been nice to just focus on that and to focus on myself,” she says. “There’s something quite refreshing about it.”
And one more thing, speaking about herself. Don’t call her “ScarJo.”
“Oh, it’s awful,” she says. “It’s a laziness. People can’t actually say the whole name? It’s just bizarre.” After all, Cate Blanchett has no such nickname, and, says Johansson, “is not, like, ‘CaBla’ … Why is that? Why do I have to get stuck?”
I added over 700 HQs of Scarlett looking lovely, all from yesterday! Scarlett will be on Live with Regis and Kelly on December 20th, so check your local listings for times.
With her divorce from Ryan Reynolds finalized, nude photos leaked on the web and her love life under a microscope – not to mention filming a slew of high profile projects – Scarlett Johansson had a rollercoaster year in 2011.
“I’ve had ups and downs. Certainly, this past year has been a lot of unexpected things in many beautiful ways, many challenging ways,” the 27-year-old actress told Access Hollywood over the weekend, while promoting her latest movie, “We Bought a Zoo.”
“You just have to kind of embrace it. For me, the most important thing is that it doesn’t affect my work and it doesn’t affect my private life as much as possible,” she continued. “If I could keep that bubble around myself during my work, that is really what’s most important for me.”
The actress, who filmed “The Avengers” and is currently shooting “Under the Skin” – along with being the subject of dating rumors that included the likes of Sean Penn, Justin Bartha and Joseph Gordon-Levitt – told Access she wants a more relaxing 2012.
“I’m just looking forward to sleeping later than five in the morning. I just want to have a little vacation before I get back to finishing this job, and then just keep going,” she added.
“We Bought a Zoo,” which co-stars Matt Damon, opens in theaters on December 23.
The ongoing fight against cancer received another boost of support on December 1 as a leading action sports apparel company teamed up with actress Scarlett Johansson to donate money and beanies to one of the nation’s leading research and treatment hospitals.
The collaboration between Johansson and Ventura, Calif.-based Neff Headwear has produced the Scarlett Beanie. For every Scarlett Beanie purchased through online retailer Zappos.com, one will be donated to a cancer patient at City of Hope, an independent medical and research institution located in northeast Los Angeles. Neff will donate up to 5,000 beanies; thereafter, 10 percent from each Scarlett Beanie sold, up to $20,000, will be donated to City of Hope, while supplies last.
The knit beanie comes in black or light tan, each with the actress’s signature tag, and are being sold exclusively at Zappos, for $24.99 each.
“Conscious consumerism is definitely something I believe in, and Neff’s platform for giving back seemed like a perfect fit,” the 27-year-old Johansson said in a press release last week. “I helped create this Neff beanie with the hope that every purchase might make a cancer patient feel a bit more comfortable during his/her treatments.”
Hair loss is a common side affect of cancer chemotherapy treatment.
“As Neff has grown internationally, we have had the opportunity to work with incredible people all over the world, but never directly with such an important organization like City of Hope,” said founder Shaun Neff, who, according to its website, started selling shirts and hats out of the back of his car in 2002. “By adding Scarlett Johansson’s passion and lending her name and creativity to this partnership, we are able to introduce two beanies that we’re confident the patients will find cozy and comfortable while they undergo treatment.”
“City of Hope is at the forefront of research to ensure that people with cancer receive the best possible treatment,” said Steve Martin, vice president of marketing for City of Hope, which was founded in 1913. “The support of a popular brand like Neff and a leading actress like Scarlett Johansson will help our researchers in their drive to discover new and improved treatments. The Scarlett Beanie is a wonderful opportunity to raise funds for life-saving research as well as to raise cancer awareness among active young people around the world.”
Scarlett Johansson does not seem the least bit ashamed when discussing her recent nude-photo scandal with Vanity Fair contributing editor Peter Biskind. “I know my best angles,” she says with her trademark insouciance. “They were sent to my husband,” now ex Ryan Reynolds. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not like I was shooting a porno.” She adds saucily, “Although there’s nothing wrong with that either.”
Johansson, who has been active in campaigning for various Democratic political leaders, including Barack Obama, tells Biskind that nearly one term later “we’re all guilty of being idealistic, I and everyone who voted for him.” But in response to being asked if she would work for him again, she says, “It would be irresponsible not to.” She also discusses her friendship with Woody Allen, spawned by their shared tendency toward hypochondria and, subsequently, shared Purell. “He shakes a lot of hands,” Johansson explains. “I’ll squirt some in my hand and then squirt in his.” She also has a bizarre penchant for diagnosing him. “The only reason why Woody and I are still friends is because I’ve diagnosed all kinds of his skin tags, lesions, ailments. I’ve prescribed things for Woody that he’s then asked his doctor to prescribe for him.”
Despite their compatibility, after working with Johansson on several films, Allen decided they should take a break: “I have every intention of working with her again, but I just didn’t think it was a great idea for either one of us to work together too intensely, picture after picture. I didn’t want her to be burdened by, ‘Oh, she’s in all the Woody Allen pictures, it’s so predictable,’ and she’s my new muse, and all that silliness.” Johansson does not share his opinion: “I don’t think anything’s played out. I’m waiting for him to write my Citizen Kane.”
Johansson says that her role in a revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge in 2009 opposite Liev Schreiber “completely took me over in every way. I’d spent four months bleeding all over the stage, completely exposed. I felt I was forever changed by that experience. It was unbelievable holding that Tony.” Her emotional and physical exhaustion after the end of the run was compounded by her subsequent divorce from Reynolds. “I didn’t really know what to do with myself. It was such a strange time. There was nothing that was interesting to me. I had a very public separation. It was difficult. I felt very uncomfortable.”
