Congratulations!

Scarlett Johansson celebrates her 40th birthday

Scarlett Johansson has been in front of the camera since she was a child. Now the actress is turning 40

(Bild: APA/AFP/LOIC VENANCE)

Few people can look back on a career spanning more than three decades at the age of 40. Scarlett Johansson, who celebrates this milestone birthday on November 22, is one of these exceptional talents. She made her debut as an eight-year-old in the play "Sophistry" alongside Ethan Hawke.

Robert Redford brought her in front of the camera at the age of twelve for the drama "The Horse Whisperer", as a young girl who loses her leg in a riding accident. In her late 20s, she played the combative Marvel heroine "Black Widow", the feared Black Widow spy Natasha Romanoff.

At the age of 35, the actress scooped up two Oscar nominations.

Embodies absolute Hollywood glamor
The blonde New Yorker with the dark voice embodies Hollywood glamor like Carole Lombard, as Tom Rothman from film studio Sony Pictures recently attested: This "very rare combination of glamorous, beautiful intelligence" makes her a true movie star. Rothman was one of many who showered Johansson with compliments in a "New York Times" feature in July.

Scarlett Johansson can look back on a career spanning decades.

(Bild: 2019 Getty Images)

Woody Harrelson, who shot the clever comedy "To the Moon" (2024) with her and Channing Tatum, raved about her wit and down-to-earth attitude. "She's a global superstar, but I never noticed a trace of ego."

In the film, co-produced by Johansson, her husband, comedian Colin Jost (42), also has a small role. They have been married since 2020 and their son Cosmo is three years old.

All good things come in threes
Johansson shares custody of their ten-year-old daughter Rose with her ex-husband, French journalist Romain Dauriac. Her first marriage to Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds ended in 2010 after just over two years.

Jost and Johansson met on the set of the satirical show "Saturday Night Live". The actress has hosted the biting show several times. In 2017, she transformed herself into Ivanka Trump in a sketch and made fun of the daughter of then US President Donald Trump.

Scarlett Johansson is happily married to comedian Colin Jost.

(Bild: APA/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Johansson campaigned for Kamala Harris in the recent US presidential election. Together with several "Avengers" actors, including Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk) and Chris Evans (Captain America), she pledged her support for the Democrat in a video link. The prospect of Donald Trump's possible re-election is like a "scary nightmare", the actress told the New York Times in July.

Film debut at the tender age of nine
Johansson has a Jewish mother with Polish roots and a Danish father. She took acting lessons as a child in New York. At the age of nine, she made her film debut in the comedy "North" (1994), alongside child star Elijah Wood and directed by Rob Reiner.

After "The Horse Whisperer" and the teen film "Ghost World", the young talent made her international breakthrough with "Lost in Translation" (2003). Johansson was just 17 years old when she was cast by director Sofia Coppola alongside Bill Murray. She plays the misunderstood young wife of a busy photographer who meets a Hollywood star (Murray) in a hotel bar in Tokyo who is filming a whiskey commercial in Japan. On their forays through Tokyo at night, the unlikely couple cautiously become closer.

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in "Lost in Translation"

(Bild: picturedesk.com/AMERICAN ZOETROPE / Mary Evans )

For Johansson, things went from strength to strength in Hollywood. She played the muse of the artist Vermeer in "The Girl with the Pearl Earring", a hardened Southern girl in "Lovesong for Bobby Long" or the amorous daughter of a strict father in "A Matter for the Boss". Old master Woody Allen brought her in front of the camera as a seductive starlet for "Match Point", and again for "Scoop" and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona".

Superheroine career
Her role as Black Widow in "Iron Man 2" (2010) was the starting signal for countless Marvel films and a highly paid superhero career. In 2012, she was immortalized with a star on Hollywood's "Walk of Fame". In 2013, the men's magazine Esquire named her "Sexiest Woman Alive" for the second time. In 2018 and 2019, the business magazine Forbes named her the highest-earning actress in Hollywood.

Scarlett Johansson in her role as Black Widow in "Marvel's The Avengers"

(Bild: www.pps.at)

She turned Joaquin Phoenix's head with just her voice in the sci-fi romance "Her" (2013). He plays a melancholy ghostwriter who falls in love with a female computer voice called Samantha.

Two Oscar nominations
Johansson has not yet won an Oscar, but in 2020 she was nominated for two trophies: for her leading role in the divorce drama "Marriage Story" and for her supporting role as a single mother in the Nazi satire "Jojo Rabbit".

Most recently, she starred under the direction of Wes Anderson in "Asteroid City" and in the directorial debut "North Star" by British director Kristin Scott Thomas. She is currently behind the camera as a director herself. Her debut film "Eleanor the Great" revolves around a 90-year-old named Eleanor Morgenstein (June Squibb), who gives up her decades-long life in Florida after a death and moves back to New York alone.

However, fans of the actress can already look forward to the next action spectacle. Universal has announced another sequel from the "Jurassic" universe, "Jurassic World Rebirth", for July 2025. A team of researchers is tasked with obtaining DNA samples from the few dinosaurs still alive, which are important for the development of a human drug. Johansson plays the intrepid expedition leader.