9-Year Old Scarlett Johansson's Jumanji Audition Is The Sweetest Thing You'll See Today
This could've easily been her grand debut.
Today Scarlett Johansson is mostly known and loved by fans for her performance as Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) in numerous MCU movies, but her extensive career counts more than 50 movies. The actress has also appeared in television series, video games, and stage plays, and received various awards and nominations, including one British Academy Film Award and one Tony Award.
Johansson fans know that she made her debut in the 1994 comedy-drama North. However, 1994 was not the exact start of her career. The actress herself shared that she was auditioning from the age of 7, looking for roles in commercials and movies.
"It's like I hopped out of the womb and said, 'I will perform!'" she said in her interview with The Guardian.
It was not all sunshine and rainbows out there, as the commercial auditions were similar to the beauty pageants in all the wrong ways, and Johansson was often scared by the aggressive parents of competing kids. The actress even recalls fighting with her own mother because of the never-ending tension.
These circumstances led young Johansson, her mom, and her agent at the time to focus more on the movie auditions. The audition for the original Jumanji movie was one of the many for the actress, but the earliest one that is available for the public to watch.
The clips are cut to show Scarlett with a script in her hands reading through the lines of Judy Shepherd, one of the main characters of the story. Jumanji is an American fantasy adventure film directed by Joe Johnston from a screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor, and Jim Strain, based on the 1981 children's picture book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg.
At the time, Johansson did not get the role, and Judy was portrayed by another young talent Kirsten Dunst. However, it did not stop Scarlett from working hard on her performance, and as soon as in 1996 she got her lead in Manny & Lo. Good thing it all worked out for both actresses at the end of the day, and now we can happily enjoy their performance.