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The Black Widow actress, Scarlett Johansson, has spoken candidly about the challenges of motherhood. In a recent interview on The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast, Johansson shared anecdotes about her experiences as a mother of two young children, including the emotional strain of parenting toddlers.
Johansson, who shares a daughter with ex-husband Romain Dauriac and a son with her current husband Colin Jost, explained that the toddler stage could be particularly challenging.
She compared it to being in an emotionally abusive relationship and described young children’s constant mood swings and bossy attitudes. Cosmo, in addition to Johansson’s daughter, Rose, from a previous relationship.
Scarlett Johansson on the Challenges of Parenting
Scarlett Johansson is getting candid about parenting, offering up anecdotes as a mother to two young children. The actress opened up about parenting challenges, particularly in the toddler stage, which she likened to being in an “emotionally abusive relationship.”
Johansson shares Rose with ex-husband Romain Dauriac and son Cosmo, 1, with her husband, “Saturday Night Live” star Colin Jost. “Three is tough,” Johansson explained of the toddler stage. “I remember my daughter — my daughter is 8½. … When she was two, I thought, ‘This is great. I don’t know what everyone is talking about.’ And then she turned three, and it was like being in an emotionally abusive relationship.”
“I just was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s crazy. It was just so tense. No reasoning. … Very intense emotional swings, and like so bossy and adamant and like it’s just crazy. And also these huge mood swings — constant mood swings. … Those poor little guys, I feel bad for ’em. It must be a lot. … You’re like up and down constantly,” she explained on “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast.”
The Joys of Having a Baby
Despite the challenges, the Black Widow actress also spoke about the joys of having a baby.
“Having a baby is so lovely,” Johansson said.
“They’re so cute. They sit there and love you, and then that’s it. And you get love from them, whereas you get a lot of grief from toddlers,” the Black Widow actress said, laughing.
“Like everything you do is not right. Which is hard.”
Scarlett Johansson on Social Media
Johansson also got real about her aversion to social media while on the podcast. The actress revealed that she is “too fragile of a person to have social media,” attributing it mainly to her fragility.
“I honestly am too fragile to have social media,” Johansson said. “My ego is too fragile. I can’t deal with it. My brain is too fragile. I’m like a delicate flower. I have enough anxiety.”
The Pitfalls of Social Media
Johansson said she had an Instagram account for three days but ultimately deleted it after being too immersed while looking at someone else’s posts.
She admitted that she felt like she was wasting her time and “missing out” by looking at the account of someone she didn’t know.
“When I started realizing that I’d spent 20 minutes looking at somebody’s Instagram page who worked for a friend of mine — I now know you have a pit bull, two daughters, and live in Burbank — I was like, I just wasted 17 minutes,” she said.
“I now feel like I should move to California, get this specific dog, and change my life in all these ways.”
“I felt so bad like I was missing out on this random person’s life,” she added. “I can’t do this. I’m too fragile. I have so much anxiety about other things.”
Scarlett Johansson on Her Career Trajectory
The actress opened up in December on the Table for Two podcasts about how she shifted her career “trajectory” to not get pigeonholed as “a bombshell-type of an actor.”
She explained how she became an ingénue instead, saying, “I think for a while, because of the way that I look, I just ended up with a lot of, like, bombshell roles or roles that were that stereotype. And I knew that I didn’t want to be stuck in that.”
Johansson discussed how she deliberately chose roles that challenged her as an actor and allowed her to showcase her range.
She said, “I wanted to have longevity in my career, and that meant not just playing into one particular stereotype. It meant trying to stretch myself as an actor and trying different types of roles.”
Her career trajectory certainly reflects this desire to push herself creatively. Johansson has starred in many films, from indie darlings like Lost in Translation and Her to big-budget blockbusters like The Avengers and Lucy.
She has also tackled a variety of genres, including drama, comedy, action, and science fiction.
Despite her success, Johansson has faced criticism and controversy throughout her career. In 2017, she was accused of whitewashing after being cast as a Japanese character in Ghost in the Shell.
She later faced backlash for accepting the role of a transgender man in the upcoming film Rub & Tug.
Johansson apologized for her past casting choices and expressed her support for diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.
In a statement to Vanity Fair, she said, “In hindsight, I mishandled that situation. I was not sensitive. My initial reaction to it. I wasn’t aware of how the trans community felt about those three actors playing—and how they felt in general about cis actors playing—transgender people.”
