Scarlett Johansson says getting turned down for two big movie roles left her 'hopeless'

Scarlett Johansson has revealed how getting turned down for two big movie roles left her feeling 'frustrated' and 'hopeless'.

If it feels like Scarjo has been on our screens for decades, it's because she actually has.

The actor started her career at the tender age of nine when she appeared opposite Ethan Hawke in the 1993 Off-Broadway play Sophistry.

"I remember having a total huge crush on Ethan at the time because he was like everything in that era," she told Variety in a recent interview.

In that same year, the Black Widow star landed a role in Rob Reiner’s North, later released in 1994, alongside Elijah Wood, who she also had a little 'crush' on.

Four years on, she starred in Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer and by 17, Scarlett acted alongside Bill Murray in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

Her career went from strength to strength while earning critical appeal along the way - winning a best actress at the BAFTAs and getting a Golden Globe nomination.

YouTube/Variety

Despite Scarlett's upward trajectory within the film industry, she hasn't always got the roles she wanted.

There were two films in particular that she initially missed out on.

“I got turned down for two roles — the first was Iron Man 2 and then the other one was Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity,” she explains.

“I had wanted that role so much. It was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I felt really frustrated and hopeless.

“Like, ‘Am I doing the right job?’ The work I was being offered felt deeply unfulfilling.

“I think I was offered every Marilyn Monroe script ever.

“I was like, ‘Is this the end of the road creatively?’”

But - hang on - you're probably remembering that she actually was in Iron Man 2.

Marvel Studios

It turns out that she eventually landed the role as Black Widow because Emily Blunt dropped out.

Try and imagine a world where Black Widow wasn't played by Scarlett Johansson, because I can't.

“That movie wasn’t going to move the needle forward in terms of how my character was written, but there was potential for what it could be — a potential for growth in subsequent films,” she said.

With such a long career in Hollywood, the star thanked her parents for not letting her fall into the usual traps young actors often find themselves in.

“You need your parents to set boundaries and hold you accountable and keep you away from, like, weird people,” she said. “I was really fortunate that I had that.”