Casting decisions in film and theater are often fraught with complexities, ranging from finding the perfect actor to embody a character to navigating social and political sensitivities. This article explores various facets of casting, drawing examples from the career of Scarlett Johansson, the search for Scarlett O’Hara, and the casting of "The Miracle Worker," while also touching on the symbolic use of blood in art.
Scarlett Johansson at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con
Scarlett Johansson: A Career Forged from Talent and Determination
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in Manhattan, New York City. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, is from a Jewish family from the Bronx, and her father, Karsten Johansson, is a Danish-born architect from Copenhagen. She has a sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, a brother, Adrian, a twin brother, Hunter Johansson, born three minutes after her, and a paternal half-brother, Christian. Her grandfather was writer Ejner Johansson.
Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions. She made her professional acting debut at the age of eight in the off-Broadway production of "Sophistry" with Ethan Hawke, at New York's Playwrights Horizons. She would audition for commercials but took rejection so hard her mother began limiting her to film tryouts. She made her film debut at the age of nine, as John Ritter's character's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). Following minor roles in Just Cause (1995), as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw's character, and If Lucy Fell (1996), she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female, and positive reviews, one noting, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson", while San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle commentated on her "peaceful aura", and wrote, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress."
After appearing in minor roles in Fall (1997) and Home Alone 3 (1997), Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford, where she played Grace MacLean, a teenager traumatized by a riding accident. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film. In 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the music video for Mandy Moore's single, "Candy".
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Although the film was not a box office success, she received praise for her breakout role in Ghost World (2001), credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age". She was also featured in the Coen Brothers' dark drama The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand. She appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002) with David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer.
In 2003, she was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation (2003)), her breakout role, starring opposite Bill Murray, and receiving rave reviews and a Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival. Her film roles include the critically acclaimed Weitz brothers' film In Good Company (2004), as well as starring opposite John Travolta in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which garnered her a third Golden Globe Award nomination.
She dropped out of Mission: Impossible III (2006) due to scheduling conflicts. After this, she appeared in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) and was nominated again for a Golden Globe Award. In May 2008, she released her album "Anywhere I Lay My Head", a collection of Tom Waits covers featuring one original song. Also that year, she starred in Frank Miller's The Spirit (2008), the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and played Mary Boleyn opposite Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008).
Since then, she has appeared as part of an ensemble cast in the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You (2009), the action superhero film Iron Man 2 (2010), the comedy-drama We Bought a Zoo (2011) and starred as the original scream queen, Janet Leigh, in Hitchcock (2012). She then played her character, Black Widow, in the blockbuster action films The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Black Widow (2021), and also headlined the sci-fi action thriller Lucy (2014), a box office success. With more than a decade of work already under her belt, Scarlett has proven to be one of Hollywood's most talented young actresses. Her other starring roles are in the sci-fi action thriller Ghost in the Shell (2017) and the dark comedy Rough Night (2017).
Scarlett and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were engaged in May 2008 and married in September of that year. In 2010, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced a year later. In 2013, she became engaged to French journalist Romain Dauriac, the couple married a year later. In January 2017, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced in September of that year. They have a daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac (born 2014). She married Colin Jost in October 2020.
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The Casting Conundrum: "Gone with the Wind"
It’s been 75 years since the world first fell in love with Scarlett O’Hara. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind tells the story of the complicated love triangle between characters Scarlett O’Hara, Ashley Wilkes, and Rhett Butler, set against the backdrop the American Civil War and Reconstruction in Georgia.
Before a single frame was shot, Gone with the Wind found itself entrenched in a multitude of controversies, including the questioning of its portrayal of race and the drawn-out search for the perfect Scarlett, which took nearly two and a half years and upward of 1,400 auditions. “A lot of women wrote in, saying, ‘I am Scarlett! I want to play her,’” Wilson says. “There are a lot of qualities about Scarlett that people were drawn to. After all, she did what she had to to survive and save her home.
With the guidance of a faculty committee, Wilson and his team culled together the largest and most extensive exhibition of Gone with the Wind memorabilia ever created, including three original dresses worn by Vivien Leigh in the film. “I’m hoping visitors walk away with a deeper understanding of the story,” Wilson says. “A tremendous number of people wanted to be part of it.
“I’ve been saying since we started the research that, although Gone with the Wind was set in the Civil War, it’s really a story of the Great Depression,” Wilson says. “The story really touched on what was of big concern for people during the Depression-food and security, men and women going off to war and maybe not coming back. What emerged from Wilson and the students’ winnowing is a little-known dramatic tale that rivals even Gone with the Wind’s powerful screenplay.
One million people flooded to Atlanta’s Loew’s Grand Theater on Dec. 15, 1939 for the film’s premiere, the culmination of a three-day celebration hosted by the city’s mayor.
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Poster of Gone With The Wind
Controversies Surrounding "Gone with the Wind"
Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award when she took home Best Supporting Actress for the film in 1940. Using the word “damn” on film would’ve elicited a hefty fine from the Motion Picture Association of America, so Selznick had to get creative when it came to Rhett Butler’s exit line. Luckily, the MPAA board passed an amendment allowing its usage “when required for portrayal in proper historical context” just in time.
Casting for "The Miracle Worker": A Focus on Authenticity
The casting call for "The Miracle Worker" sought young actors to portray the iconic roles of Helen Keller and her companions. The play, set in Tuscumbia, Alabama, tells the story of Annie Sullivan's efforts to reach the mind of Helen Keller, who is deaf and blind due to an illness contracted in infancy.
The role of Helen Keller requires a young actress, aged 8-11, of any ethnicity, to portray a character trapped in her own world, unable to speak, hear, or see. The casting call emphasizes the need for a strong connection between the actress and the character of Annie Sullivan. The role involves intense physical scenes, highlighting the challenges faced by Helen.
| Role | Gender | Age | Ethnicity | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helen Keller | Female | 8-11 | All | Deaf, blind, mute. Trapped in her own world. |
| James Keller | Male | 16-18 | All | Helen’s half-brother, indolent. |
| Percy | Both | 8-12 | All | Playmate of Helen. |
The Symbolism of Blood in Art: Medieval and Modern Perspectives
In medieval Europe, blood was a fascination; frightening, powerful, mysterious. Centuries later, the bright red liquid pulsing through our bodies continues to spark extreme reactions, especially when it’s depicted in art, movies, or even sneakers.
The new exhibit at Los Angeles’s J. Paul Getty Museum, Blood: Medieval/Modern, draws connections between those two time periods and how our concepts of this bodily fluid have - and have not - evolved. Much of the exhibition focuses on how Medieval artists, writers, and religious leaders thought of blood, especially in the context of Christianity and Jesus Christ. Aside from the many pieces of art that showcased Christ’s wounds, the Middle Ages also produced much “medical discourse” about blood, according to Getty curators, “ranging from the practical treatment of disease through blood analysis, bloodletting as a cure, menstruations, and a growing understanding of the human circulatory system.”
Blood: Medieval/Modern also looks at contemporary depictions of blood, including when modern artists and tastemakers use it to make points about feminism, DNA, and HIV and AIDS.
Featured in Blood: Medieval/Modern is Eagles’s “Queer Blood America” from 2021, a thought-provoking work depicting a vial of a gay man’s blood placed over the cover of a Captain America comic book from the early days of AIDS; crumpled up surgical gloves surround the image.
“By integrating the blood of an individual who is HIV+ and undetectable, and a gay man on PrEP, I want to highlight how the tragic or dated storylines of these comics from the ’70s, ’80’s and ’90s would be very different, if not irrelevant, today because of the progress in science, treatment, and prevention.”
Current blood donation policies are biased and contribute to preventing full equality for the LBGTQI+ community and my work addresses these issues by confronting the inherent discrimination and stigma,” Eagles tells Plus (the Food and Drug Administration removed restrictions on blood donations for gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships last year, but still makes individuals who’ve had anal sex with new partners or more than one partner wait to donate blood).
“In the work ‘Queer Blood America,’ which is included in the exhibition, Blood: Medieval/Modern, and the installation ‘Illuminations,’ both utilize vintage comic book images with narratives that relate to blood and/or HIV/AIDS, paired with blood donated by members of the LGBTQI+ community, creating new entry points to examine these biased policies,” Eagles adds.
Queer Blood America by Jordan Eagles
The resin panels of “Illumination” contain blood donated from LGBTQ+ people, some on PrEP and others living with HIV but undetectable, with comic book images laid over the blood and projectors turning the whole installation a foreboding red.
Blood: Medieval/Modern, curated by Larisa Grollemond, is on display at the Getty until May 19.
