James Gray was sure Scarlett Johansson would say no. “I didn’t think Scarlett Johansson had any interest in working with me on any level,” says the famous director. “I don’t even know if she knew it, but a few times, I wanted to work with her. I’ve been obsessed with working with Scarlett for a long time, so I was completely pessimistic about it.” While listening to the nearby Zoom box, Johansson nods while holding a poker face like only great actors do. Then, when it’s her turn to respond, she smiles: “I’m not going to comment on the pessimistic part…but James and I have met before to discuss different things, so he actually wasn’t being completely honest. He knew I was interested.”
“I was very nervous. I was terrified that she would think it was unreasonable and ridiculous,” Gray explains.
Johansson then read the script to paper tigerwhich premieres this weekend in Cannes. “I thought, ‘Oh, I know I can do this,’” she says. I don’t necessarily know how I’m going to do it, but I know there’s something here that I can do and that I can be an asset.” “It had a lot of elements that I loved. “It’s a big story inside a small story.”
Johansson has made a habit of mixing up gassy tentpole fare with ease as Jurassic World: Rebirth And Mike Flanagan’s next film The exorcist — is currently filming, thus preventing Johansson from attending the concert paper tiger Premiering on the Croisette, she says — with tough, rubbery projects led by auteurs like Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson. paper tiger It falls firmly into the latter category.
The drama stars Johansson and Miles Teller as Hester and Irwin Pearl, parents of two boys in late 1980s New York, desperately clinging to the flickering dreams, new and old, of a bigger life, as well as the crushing weight of feeling that they might fade away. Irwin is drawn into a mysterious new money-making scheme with his kindly brother Gary (Adam Driver), leading to an unsettling confrontation that puts the family in grave danger.
Hester is the heart of this story: a stay-at-home mother determined to fight for more—and left to deal with a narrower set of options once tragic news breaks. “I liked the idea of Hester being feminine and soft and graceful because she has a lot of sass in her,” Johansson says. The star speaks with an affectionate and poignant understanding of the character: “She loves fashion magazines and going to movies – she loves romantic comedies and everything romantic – and window shopping. All of those things are an important part of who she is and how she presents herself. She should be in the middle of her life and striving to achieve more – energetic and full of life. That’s how I envisioned her.”
Her approach reaches its most poignant register, as the bad news piles up: “Women give up their dream for their husbands and take a step back, and the dream becomes more of a dream for their family. It’s a very common thing. I’ve seen it in my friends, I’ve seen it in my family. I just know what it is in my bones – there’s a sadness about it and a beauty in it. It’s a bittersweet thing.”
paper tiger Rich in the texture of life, and even though its dramatic architecture and crime suspense harken back to Gray’s earlier work, the vivid, period-specific family portrait is the main attraction here, showcasing his development behind the camera. “To be too pretentious about it, the intention was to try to make a very classic drama. The bonds of the film are marital and familial, father and mother and son, two brothers, mother and daughter – it’s about bonds that are very basic to human relationships,” Gray says. “Sometimes people ignore this idea, ‘classic’ – they equate it with ‘old-fashioned’, but the two are not the same thing. The inner struggle, the struggle, the love, the passion – these are never old-fashioned. This is beautiful, this is what it means to be human, and the moment it becomes an old-fashioned idea, you too can raise the white flag.”
Gray has long championed this range of cinema for theaters — Neon secured U.S. rights as soon as its selection at Cannes was announced — and has only turned more so as his career has progressed. income paper tiger With a crucial question to himself: “How do you make a film whose primary goal is to express love?” Johansson proved important in answering that with her performance. She has long been advertised for her natural work in dramas such as Marriage story and Lost in translationthe two-time Oscar nominee is standing big and loud paper tiger. Thick tone, curls, and passion hot in all directions. However, each choice is entirely rooted in the material—the “layers of history” within the text, as she puts it, and the memories, voices, and images of Johansson’s family.
“The sound is familiar to me,” she says. “I grew up in New York, my mother was from the Bronx, my grandmother was from Brownsville, and my grandfather was from Coney Island.” “The biology, the humor, the sarcasm, all of that, it’s fun to express because it’s part of the fabric of my cultural identity and where I come from. Even my grandmother, Dorothy, her mother only spoke Yiddish to her, and there’s a real musicality in the very specific dialect.”
From day one, she embraced that trait — several times, she admits, to excess: “James would sometimes say to me, ‘That’s too much: You’re not a Yinta from Brownsville!’”
Gray raises his finger, smiles, and waits his turn to respond. “Scarlett would never do anything that wasn’t real,” he explains. “You have to be careful because it could be quite real, but it would be outside the scope of the language of the film.” He and Johansson felt perfectly in sync as they adjusted the tune. “You’re supposed to say these things, but I couldn’t be more honest when I say that one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had as a director has been working with Scarlett,” he says. “I don’t have to tell her how to come to the scene – she knows what to do.” “It hasn’t been studied much,” Johansson adds of their process. “There’s room to play, and it’s a pleasure to be able to work this way.”
Gray has worked with a slew of decorated actors over the years, including Academy Award winners Joaquin Phoenix, Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, Marion Cotillard, and Anne Hathaway (who was originally supposed to star in the film). paper tiger Opposite Jeremy Strong, in a reunion of the previous Grey’s film Armageddon time; Scheduling issues led to rework). In these stacked groups, he saw it all.
“I once took a photo with — well, I wouldn’t say, but with two actors who were competing against each other, at this point in their careers, and it got downright ugly and ridiculous,” Gray teases. “I’ve been through all sorts of strange circumstances, however paper tiger It was pretty much a dream.
Johansson shares only a few scenes with her Marriage story “I wish I had more to work with, I love working with him,” says co-star Driver, but she has grown close to Tiller: “He’s unexpectedly very nice. I went away for a few weeks to do press for… Jurassic – I felt crazy to leave, but I had to go – and when I went, I would get pictures of my makeup station from Miles and he would say, “Where’s Hester?”
And Taylor was not alone. Johansson left her mark on that collection, largely through her indelible descriptions. “Scarlett’s last day on set was one of the hardest days I’ve ever had – I was so sad,” Gray says. “When you make an emotional investment in something — and the main thread is conveying love and empathy, which is what we hoped the film would convey — you get the same feeling you get when you watch these actors on a daily basis… It took me a long time to get over it. Maybe that’s too cliche, I don’t know. But it’s true. It took me a long time.”
**
paper tiger Premiering May 16 at the Cannes Film Festival. Stay tuned for more screenings and premieres for Cannes 2026.
