Scarlett Johansson Reflects On The Downsides Of Franchise Films Like The MCU: “You Feel A Little Cagey”
Scarlett Johansson opens up about the hidden struggles of working in long-running franchises like the MCU, revealing how it impacted her creativity and identity.
Scarlett Johansson On Working In MCU Movies (Photo Credit – Instagram)
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When an actor picks a role, it stems from a place of curiosity to play a new character, engage in a new story, and challenge themselves. When that role and their work receive immense recognition and accolades, they are added to their list of notable works. However, there is sometimes a downside to the long-standing fame that comes recurrently with just one role, regardless of the variety of projects the actor undertakes. Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been one of the most loved and remembered characters from the early years of the MCU. This superhero film franchise is notorious for its easter eggs, cameos, and intelligently connected plots. Johansson’s role as Black Widow went on to appear across the MCU for 11 years before taking an exit in Avengers: Endgame in 2023.
Scarlett Johansson Shares Challenges Of Playing One Character For Years
Speaking about her role as Black Widow in the MCU, Scarlett Johansson said in a recent interview with Interview Magazine, “Some of the films that I did for Marvel engaged my character more than others. Like in Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Chris Evans, we were really dynamic. In some of the other films, the cast was so enormous and there was so much plot to serve that you start to feel like you’re a device to move it along.”
She delved into a personal introspection of being in the role for years together. Movies produced with interconnected storylines like those in the MCU tend to have the actors and their characters active for longer periods, even if the role is a minor one. When involved with such a story, an actor has to maintain their look until the project is finally complete.
Speaking about her experience playing Black Widow in the MCU and how it can be restricting to play one character for so long, Scarlett Johansson added, “If you’re committed to five and a half months of that, it’s like, ‘Okay. I can’t paint my nails, I can’t get a haircut.’ These sound like silly problems, but your identity is wrapped up in this job for a long time, and if you’re not doing engaging work as an actor, you feel a little cagey sometimes.”
Stranger Things & MCU Actors Struggle To Break Free From Iconic Roles
This statement also rings true for a series of a smaller scale, like Netflix’s Stranger Things. The show, which will soon come to a conclusion with season 5 airing in November 2025, has been facing hiccups owing to the actors’ ageing, but their characters remain the same. When the show was first aired, the cast matched the age range in the show. However, the actors outgrew their characters due to delays in production and longer waiting times between the seasons. Season 5 is seeing some tension from the online fan communities, where the sentiment over the cast’s age difference is in real life and their characters on-screen.
While the actors in franchise stories like the MCU and the Stranger Things Universe have played other roles, their most remembered performance remains the one that ran the longest. Their other work was shadowed by the longevity and enormity of their roles in franchise plots. Scarlett Johansson’s latest reveal about the challenges of a lucrative yet restrictive role in the long term certainly gives a new perspective on enabling an actor to play a role for year after year.
