Following sexual abuse allegations from Dylan Farrow and the growth of Hollywood’s #MeToo movement, several actors have publicly withdrawn their support from Farrow’s adoptive father and Annie Hall director Woody Allen, including Colin Firth, Ellen Page, and Rachel Brosnahan. Due to “contractual obligations” preventing him from speaking out against Allen, Timothée Chalamet said last year that he would donate the salary from his role in A Rainy Day in New York to Time’s Up, RAINN, and the LGBT Center in New York.
Per a new cover story in the Hollywood Reporter, we can definitely count Scarlett Johansson out of that movement. Instead, the Avengers actress—who has starred in Allen’s Match Point, Scoop, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona—takes a much different stance. “I love Woody,” Johansson stated. “I believe him, and I would work with him anytime.”
Videos by VICE
Not only does she see Allen often, Johansson told THR, but she has “had a lot of conversations” with him about the allegations. “I have been very direct with him, and he’s very direct with me. He maintains his innocence, and I believe him,” she said. When asked about that stance in the midst of the push to believe women, the actress responded, “It’s hard because it’s a time where people are very fired up, and understandably. Things needed to be stirred up, and so people have a lot of passion and a lot of strong feelings and are angry, and rightfully so.”
Those statements might seem jarring given Johansson’s recent advocacy for women’s issues. In 2018, she called out actor James Franco over his support for Time’s Up despite his simultaneously being the subject of sexual misconduct allegations from five women. The year before, she spoke at the Women’s March about the importance of Planned Parenthood.
Still, the actress is no stranger to courting controversy. Two years after her casting in the live-action Ghost in the Shell, Johansson stoked the internet’s ire all over again with a statement in July claiming that she could “play any person, or any tree, or any animal.” If Allen is ever looking to cast a tree, sounds like Johansson could be at the top of the list.
