Scarlett Johansson On That Onscreen Threesome With Hollywood’s Hottest Couple — And Why We’re Still So Conservative
Scarlett Johansson is done letting one steamy scene define Vicky Cristina Barcelona—telling the Irish Independent that the infamous threesome with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, who were dating then and are now married, overshadowed the film’s deeper story.
Everyone remembers the three-way from Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Scarlett Johansson knows that. But in a new-ish chat with the Irish Independent, she basically says the obsession says more about us than the movie. She also gets into what those scenes are actually like to shoot, and where her real-life boundaries were at the time.
The scene everyone fixated on
Back when the film came out, the threesome with Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem became the headline. Cruz and Bardem were dating during filming (they're now married), which only poured more gasoline on the curiosity. Johansson's take: the moment made sense inside the story Woody Allen was telling. The characters fall in love, and intimacy follows. The shock around it struck her as a pretty conservative reaction.
In other words, the scene blew up, but the movie is about more than one steamy montage. And Johansson clearly thinks the pearl-clutching missed the point.
Off-screen, that was not her life
Johansson was blunt about where fantasy ends for her. As she put it to the Irish Independent:
"Contrary to popular belief, I am not promiscuous."
At the time, she was in a very different chapter than her character. She and Ryan Reynolds had announced their engagement, and she described him as her "soulmate." Translation: she was in a committed, monogamous relationship and not interested in replicating her character's experiments off-camera. She also didn't love feeding the gossip cycle then (she rarely talked about her dating life), and she still keeps things relatively tight now. These days, she's married to Colin Jost.
What those 'intimate' scenes are really like to film
Spoiler: not intimate.
"Also, when you're shooting it's so horribly not intimate. There are like 60 grown men eating salami sandwiches waiting for when they can get off work and watch the game or whatever. You just think, 'God, are we rolling, because there are, like, trays of food being passed around? Oh, we are rolling, okay."
If you've ever wondered why actors laugh when people ask about 'sexy scenes,' this is why. It's choreography, continuity, and craft services. The on-screen fantasy is built in a very unsexy, very fluorescent reality.
Quick refresher on Vicky Cristina Barcelona
- Director: Woody Allen
- Main cast: Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz
- Release date: August 15, 2008
- Runtime: 97 minutes
- Rotten Tomatoes: 80% critics, 74% audience
Where to watch
In the U.S., Vicky Cristina Barcelona is currently streaming on Kanopy and Fubo.