Scarlett Johansson has made it clear that she doesn’t want credit where it isn’t due. In a recent Interview magazine conversation with Thunderbolts star David Harbour, Johansson revealed she asked to have her executive producer credit removed from the upcoming Marvel film.
“I asked to have my credit removed because I wasn’t involved,” Johansson said, responding to Harbour’s congratulations on her EP status for the project.
Harbour, who plays Red Guardian in Thunderbolts, joked, “You hated the movie that much?” Johansson replied, “No, you’re just wanting that to be the case,” adding that she’s still “proud” of her Marvel colleagues.
Despite her character, Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), being referenced heavily in Thunderbolts, Johansson emphasized her lack of involvement in its production. Her last official appearance in the MCU was 2021’s Black Widow, a prequel to her character’s death in Avengers: Endgame (2019).
In the same conversation, Johansson spoke candidly about the realities of working on massive ensemble projects like those in the MCU.
“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,” she said. “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 continued, “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.”
While she has no current plans to return to acting in Marvel projects, Johansson didn’t rule out working behind the scenes. In a recent interview at the Cannes Film Festival, she said she’d be open to directing a Marvel film if it maintained meaningful themes.
“There’s a way of maintaining the integrity of the idea of human connection, family, disappointment… Doing it in a giant way in a giant universe — there’s ways of doing that,” she noted.
With Thunderbolts marking a clear step away from Marvel for Johansson, her decision to step back from a project she wasn’t involved in only solidifies her commitment to authentic storytelling.