Scarlett Johansson teases her Bette Davis-esque character in Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

Scarlett Johansson has worked with Wes Anderson before, but not like this.

After contributing a small voiceover role to the director's 2018 stop-motion Isle of Dogs, Johansson tells EW she jumped at the chance to work with Anderson again when he approached her about his new film Asteroid City.

"I work well with directors who like to work hard and are precise and relentless," Johansson says. "Wes gets excited by the process of repetitive takes and what that brings out of you. It's almost like you're doing play rehearsals, but you're getting it all on film, and I like that kind of work."

After all, Johansson has been adamant lately that her time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is over. Spending hours discussing character details with an auteur filmmaker like Anderson is a far cry from the special effects-heavy blockbusters of Johansson's superhero days.

She says that Anderson sent her the script for Asteroid City during the doldrums of COVID-19 quarantine lockdowns back in 2020. That was a paralyzing time for many people, but Anderson was already abuzz with thoughts about his next film project (The French Dispatch having completed filming in 2019, though the pandemic delayed its theatrical release until 2021), and Johansson was eager to discuss the ins and outs of the character he wanted her to play — a "very famous star of stage and screen."

"She is an open book, but in the way that actors can be, where they sort of tell you both everything and nothing. She's an enigma," Johansson explains. "She talks a lot about her past and what drove her. I had a lot of questions about all of that stuff and what it all meant. Wes loves to talk about character nuance."

In addition to being a renowned director, Anderson is also an encyclopedic cinephile in his own right. So when he casts Johansson as a fictional actress, and his movie is set in 1955, you know he has some specific touchstones in mind.

"He has a lot of references, of course," Johansson says. "We were trying to understand together: Who is this woman? What's her type? Who is she similar to from that time?"

Ultimately, their main model was none other than Bette Davis, the two-time Oscar winner whose acting career spanned more than five decades. Davis was a pioneer in many ways, both in regard to the difficult characters she played on screen and the hard-fought battles she waged behind the scenes.

"She's formidable and vulnerable at the same time and just really captivating. Bette Davis' whole career, the span of it, was something I could hang my hat on," Johansson says. "I'm not playing Bette Davis, but it helped give an idea of what this person's career is and what it was like to be a woman in those circumstances then."

When we meet her in Asteroid City, Johansson's character is "in the prime of her career" and full of confidence about her place in history.

"She's had an illustrious career, but she'll be working forever," Johansson says. "She's looking forward, she wants to play the great roles and is looking forward to her destiny. Her legacy will be as one of the greats."

Knowing those kinds of details and reference points is essential for acting in an Anderson film, where the dialogue has such a specific pace and rhythm. It's not easy, in other words, which is one reason Anderson has assembled such a stable group of collaborators over the years.

Although Asteroid City brings several new faces into the director's world (including Tom Hanks and Steve Carell), Johansson shared most of her scenes with Jason Schwartzman, who has appeared in seven of the director's films. Johansson says Schwartzman's experience and steady hand were invaluable to her, especially since their scenes were shot at the end of the film's production.

Remember how Anderson first told her about the project amidst 2020 quarantines? Well, by the time Asteroid City was finally moving into production, Johansson was pregnant. Given how much work she and Anderson had put into developing the character, it was hard to find a last-minute replacement. So she found some time and ended up shooting her scenes just eight weeks after giving birth.

By the time she was filming with Schwartzman, he had already done most of his own close-ups and coverage, so he was able to be there for her as a supportive scene partner.

"Jason was so helpful," Johansson says. "It was just so quick, and also I had a little baby, so there was a lot going on. My brain was mostly functioning, but he would help me run lines at any moment. He was constantly present and supportive, and I needed him very much. I would say 'Please don't go too far away from me.' I was trying to stay alert, but he was just great. We work very similarly."

After all, that quality in Anderson's directorial style that Johansson was so drawn to (the precision, the repetition until you get it right) works for Schwartzman as well. His first film performance was as the star of Anderson's Rushmore in 1998.

"His nuance and his ability to be playful with the dialogue is just great," Johansson says of the actor. "He can underplay things so well, and he's very precise. I mean, all of the actors in the cast are really strong and a lot of them have theatrical backgrounds too. I wonder if it's something that Wes searches out, knowingly or unknowingly, because it's like he's made his own theater troupe."

Asteroid City is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival later this month before hitting U.S. theaters on June 16.

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