Scarlett Johansson, whose films have grossed more than those of any other actress in history, put her clout to good use to save Eleanor the Great, her directorial debut, after a backer pulled out at the last minute, demanding that she change the Holocaust storyline that is central to the plot.
The movie stars 96-year-old June Squibb, who plays the best friend of a Holocaust survivor and who finds an unusual way to honor the memory of her friend’s family: Stumbling into a Holocaust survivor’s group, Eleanor pretends that the survival story is hers. In an interview with The Telegraph done at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere, and published ahead of the film’s UK premiere, Johansson said that with just weeks to go before filming began, a backer demanded that the Holocaust references be cut, or they would pull their funds.
The article quotes Johansson as saying, “I mean, if they’d said, ‘I’ll only back this if you shoot in New Jersey,’ or ‘We need to get this done by the spring’, then that would have been one thing. But they were objecting to what the film actually was. It had to be about what happens when someone gets caught in the worst lie imaginable; if not the Holocaust, then what could it be? They offered no alternative. It was just, ‘This is an issue.’”
Without this backer’s support, the shooting could not begin as planned, and a delay was not an option, since Squibb, an actress whose career has blossomed since she hit her eighties, was booked to start working on a different project in just a few weeks.
Said Johansson: “We’d been talking about the film for so many months, and then this was the outcome? It was really shocking, and I was so disappointed.”
But a last-minute fund-raising pitch snagged her the perfect partner: Sony Pictures Classics, which agreed to distribute the film, and which contributed to the budget as much as the previous backer had.
Johanssons' relatives were killed in the Warsaw Ghetto
The American-Jewish actress, who learned in 2017 that relatives of hers were killed in the Warsaw Ghetto, said she felt her background enabled her to relate to the story in the film. “If I weren’t Jewish, would I have known how to do this? I don’t know. But that was a factor in me wanting to do it: I knew this world, and I knew versions of Eleanor.” Her maternal grandmother was one of the inspirations for Eleanor, she said: “She was tough and opinionated. She could be very kind, but sometimes very not-kind, too. [Her Judaism] was a big part of her identity. We were raised that way culturally on my mum’s side, and so I felt like I had an insight into that part of the story.”
Known for both action roles, such as Black Widow, The Avengers, and Jurassic World: Rebirth, as well as more dramatic parts that include Lost in Translation and Marriage Story, Johansson said she felt that Eleanor the Great was perfect for her first feature as director.
Johansson is famous for not backing away from a fight. She sued Disney over compensation issues involving her 2021 movie, Black Widow, and won. Next, she challenged ChatGPT when she felt the voice of one of its chatbots was modelled on hers, although she had declined to voice it. Again, she was victorious, and the chatbot’s voice was changed.
She credits her mother with giving her the strength to stand up for herself, and in this case, for her movie. “My mom always encouraged me to be myself, that it’s important to have integrity, and stand up for what you believe in,” she told The Telegraph.