Finding Your Roots reveals Michael Douglas and Scarlett Johansson are related

Michael Douglas’ family tree has yet another prominent Hollywood figure: Scarlett Johansson.

On Tuesday’s episode of Finding Your Roots on PBS, Henry Louis Gates revealed that through DNA research, the show’s team discovered that the Wall Street actor has a distant familial connection to the Lost in Translation actress. “Your DNA cousin is the actress Scarlett Johansson,” Gates explained. “Michael and Scarlett share identical stretches of DNA on four different chromosomes, all of which appear on Scarlett’s maternal lines, which stretch back to Jewish communities in eastern Europe.

“Are you kidding?” Douglas said. “Oh, that's amazing. All right. This is cool. This is so cool.”

Douglas and Johansson both played creepy-crawly Marvel superheroes in Avengers: Endgame — the former portrayed Hank Pym, who once fought crime as the original Ant-Man, while the latter played Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow. However, the two actors didn’t share any scenes in the movie.

“That's incredible,” Douglas continued. “I look forward to seeing Scarlett next time!”

Douglas is no stranger to famous relatives — he’s the son of legendary actor Kirk Douglas and The Indian Fighter star Diana Douglas, and has been married to fellow Oscar winner and Traffic costar Catherine Zeta-Jones since 2000. Additionally, Douglas’ brother Joel produced many of the actor’s movies, including Romancing the Stone, and his half-brother Eric was a standup comedian. 

Tuesday’s ep of Finding Your Roots also revealed a surprising relative of its other subject, Lena Dunham. At the end of the episode, Gates tells the Girls creator that she’s a distant relative of Larry David. “My husband’s gonna freak out!” Dunham said “It’s Larry David, the other LD! This is the hottest information I could have ever gotten.” 

Gates explained the connection between the two HBO stars. “Larry shares multiple long identical segments of DNA with you and your mother,” he said to Dunham. “This means that you share at least one common ancestor someone on your mother’s side of your family tree.”

Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on PBS.

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