Scarlett Johansson: The Avengers Was Nearly A “Sausagefest”
April 3, 2012 by Hollywoodite
The Avengers cover Empire Magazine March 2012. Scarlett Johansson covers as Black Widow, Chris Evans as Captain America, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
Johansson’s interview is interesting, because she reveals the reason she was cast. It’s fairly arbitrary: she’s pretty, she’s female, she fills out a catsuit, and she’s got a body type conducive to fight scenes. In the words of writer/ director Joss Whedon, Johansson was cast to balance out the boys’ club. In his words, specifically, to negate the inevitable ”sausagefest.”
On why Joss Whedon cast Johansson in Avengers: “Joss said to me, ‘I want to do everything I can to keep this from being,’ in his words, ‘a sausagefest.’ I said, ‘That’s disgusting, but okay.’”
On her character, Black Widow, not being a boring archetype: “I knew that I didn’t want to play a love interest. That’s not who Widow is. I think Joss understood the importance of having a female perspective. He’s a very sensitive guy. He works really well with women. He obviously can write for them! He loves strong and independent women and he’s got a certain understanding of and an appreciation for, women who take charge of the situation, of themselves so it was clear to me that the character would not be underwritten.”
On her sexualised image, against which she’s spoken before: “I don’t know, I don’t think of myself that way. It’s alright for now. I’m convinced that obviously in a couple of years’ time it will be somebody else. I won’t be as interesting that way. I actually have not played that many sexy characters! Of course you could say the characters I played maybe in Match Point, maybe in Black Dahlia [are sexy]. But the characters I play aren’t really traditionally sexy, I don’t think. I think it’s probably a reaction to the fact that I’m curvy and confident about it, maybe. But I don’t think I was particularly sexy in Lost in Translation or particularly sexy in The Other Boleyn Girl.” – via Empire Magazine.
