The actress-director opens up about the challenges of dating outside Hollywood, the emotional complexities of her profession, and finding balance with Colin Jost
In a candid conversation with Stranger Things and Thunderbolts actor David Harbour for Interview magazine, Scarlett Johansson opened up about the personal dynamics of love, jealousy, and work that come with being an actor—and why dating outside of Hollywood isn’t as easy as it may seem.
The 40-year-old actress and now director, currently making waves for her debut film Eleanor the Great, shared that while she has had serious relationships with people outside the entertainment industry, they often struggled to understand the unique demands of her profession.
“I’ve had serious relationships with people that were not in the industry, and I found one of the challenges was that the person had no idea of what I needed to do my job,” Johansson told Harbour. “Obviously, if I was dating an oncologist, I wouldn’t know what they needed to do for their job. But it’s not so abstract.”
Johansson, who shares two children—Cosmo, 3, with current husband Colin Jost, and Rose, 10, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac—explained that one of the core tensions often stemmed from jealousy. “Actors by nature are very free-spirited and they create very intimate relationships with people at work. They can be loyal to a partner and also very engaged in all these other kinds of relationships, and I think it can be a blurry line for some people,” she said.
She also touched on how her public persona can complicate things further: “To have a relationship with the public can be a complicated thing for people outside of the industry to understand.”
Before marrying Saturday Night Live star Colin Jost in 2020, Johansson was married to art dealer Romain Dauriac from 2014 to 2017, and actor Ryan Reynolds from 2008 to 2011. Today, she and Jost seem to have found a rhythm that works. The couple recently attended the 2025 Cannes Film Festival together in support of Eleanor the Great, marking a milestone in Johansson’s shift from in front of the camera to behind it.
Her recent work includes Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, and she’s set to headline Jurassic World Rebirth, hitting theaters on July 2. Even with this busy schedule, Johansson values routine and quiet during production.
“When I’m working, and you’re probably like this too,” she told Harbour, “I’m pretty hermetic. If I’m in a town, I like to go to the little restaurant and movie theater, but I don’t like a lot of variation. I like things to be… I don’t want to say rigorous, but you want a routine.”
Scarlett Johansson’s reflection is a thoughtful reminder that behind the glamor, actors navigate deeply human challenges—balancing passion, privacy, and partnership in a world that rarely stays still.
