Scarlett Johansson Reflected On "Embarrassing" Past Career Controversies

As well as bringing up her consistent support and defense of accused sexual predator Woody Allen, the article makes reference to the controversy surrounding Scarlett's role in the 2017 manga adaptation Ghost in the Shell. At the time, she was accused of whitewashing and taking a role that should have gone to a Japanese actor. Her response — "I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person" — was also met with backlash.

It also brings up Scarlett's casting in the film Rub and Tug, in which she was set to play a trans man. She eventually pulled out of the project, saying in a statement provided to Out magazine, "Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I've learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realize it was insensitive."

Her first statement on the matter simply directed those offended by her casting to seek comment from "Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman's reps." All three are cisgender actors who have played trans people on screen.

She clarified: "To have the experience of, 'Wow, I was really off mark there.' Or I wasn't looking at the big picture, or I was inconsiderate."

"I'm also a person," Scarlett added.

"I can be reactive. I can be impatient," she said. "That doesn't mix that great with self-awareness."

"Some people want to, but the idea that you're obligated to because you're in the public eye is unfair," Scarlett said. "You didn't choose to be a politician, you're an actor."

"Your job is to reflect our experience to ourselves; your job is to be a mirror for an audience, to be able to have an empathetic experience through art," she went on. "That is what your job is."

She said she believes that level of constant judgment and immediate reactivity has been worsened by the rise of social media.

"Your sense of reality is completely skewed," Scarlett said. "It's not normal to be that exposed. You can be exposed whenever you're in the public eye, but to then be on the receiving end, like a raw nerve, of all this stuff back? It's too much!"

"It's incredible how if you talk to people — not type to them — that's how you grow," she went on. "Listening to people, learning their experience, sharing that, seeing it with your eyeballs."