Scar-Jo Defends Friendship with Woody Allen and Her Decision to Do a Hitler Comedy; Apologizes Again for Trans Controversy

Scarlett Johansson sat down with Vanity Fair for its latest issue and spoke at length about the recent controversies that have dogged her career in the last few years – including the mishandling of a transgender casting situation, taking a role in the Hitler comedy JoJo Rabbit, and continuing to stand by her pal Woody Allen.

On Allen:

“I don’t know — I feel the way I feel about it.”
“It’s my experience,” she continued. “I don’t know any more than any other person knows. I only have a close proximity with Woody — he’s a friend of mine. But I have no other insight other than my relationship with him.”
As for some people being uncomfortable with that opinion — especially in the wake of the #MeToo movement — as it appears to say “I don’t believe you,” to a woman who has spoken out about sexual misconduct or abuse, Johansson took pause.
“Yeah,” she said to VF. “I do understand how that is triggering for some people. But just because I believe my friend does not mean that I don’t support women, believe women. I think you have to take it on a case-by-case basis. You can’t have this blanket statement — I don’t believe that. But that’s my personal belief. That’s how I feel.”

On first taking the role of a transgender man in a biographical movie of his life, then dropping out, she says:

“In hindsight, I mishandled that situation,” she told VF. “I was not sensitive, my initial reaction to it. I wasn’t totally aware of how the trans community felt about those three actors playing — and how they felt in general about cis actors playing—transgender people. I wasn’t aware of that conversation — I was uneducated. So I learned a lot through that process. I misjudged that. It was a hard time. It was like a whirlwind. I felt terribly about it. To feel like you’re kind of tone-deaf to something is not a good feeling.”

And about her role in JoJo Rabbit by Taika Waititi:

“The script was fantastic. It was a gem. I mean: perfect. Obviously I’ve read plenty of scripts over these 20-whatever years, and when something is that tight and surprising and touching and unusual — I was, like, ‘’This is really special.’ And I felt Taika was capable of making it the way that it deserved to be made.”

Do these explanations satisfy you? Or does the doubling down feel slightly Trumpian to you? You tell me in the comments section on Facebook.