Scarlett Johansson Pleads Ignorance About Woody Allen In Terse Interview

Interviewer is escorted out after asking too many questions about the SodaStream scandal…

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by Sophie Wilkinson |
Published on

Given that her latest film, Under The Skin, is a low-budget, virtually unscripted thriller, in which she plays an alien transported to the industrial estates on the outskirts Glasgow, you'd think Scarlett Johansson was unafraid to veer from the Hollywood line. However, this imge unravelled somewhat when a journalist was escorted from the premises after asking her about Woody Allen and that SodaStream scandal.

Scarlett has appeared in many Woody Allen films, such as* Match Point*,* Vicky Cristina Barcelona* and Scoop (no, us neither) and Woody has called her 'sexually overwhelming.' But she doesn't seem to know much about his daughter Dylan Farrow's open letter to him published last month, where she accuses him, in great detail, of sexually abusing her aged seven, and calls on actors and actresses who have collaborated with him, including Emma Stone, Alec Baldwin and Cate Blanchett to think about these allegations.

When the interviewer asked Scarlett about this, however, she replied: 'I think it's irresponsible to take a bunch of actors that will have a Google alert on and to suddenly throw their name into a situation that none of us could possibly knowingly comment on. That just feels irresponsible to me.'

Despite a backlash beginning to mount, Scarlett claimed to have known nothing about it: 'I'm unaware that there's been a backlash. I think he'll continue to know what he knows about the situation, and I'm sure the other people involved have their own experience with it.'

She added that only a guilty verdict in a court would change her mind: 'It's not like this is somebody that's been prosecuted and found guilty of something, and you can then go, "I don't support this lifestyle or whatever." I mean, it's all guesswork.'

Asked if the allegations changed her relationship with Woody, Scarlett again pleaded ignorance: 'I don't know anything about it. It would be ridiculous for me to make any kind of assumption one way or the other.'

The interview then turned particularly sour when The Observer's Carole Cadwalladr asked about Scarlett stepping down from her ambassador role for Oxfam after criticism that her promotion of SodaStream was endorsing a factory in an Israeli settlement in Palestine.

When asked if she understands why she was criticised for choosing to remain the face of SodaStream, a company paying her money, over a charity she had been supporting, the actress replied: 'Sure, I think that's the way you can look at it. But I also think for a non-governmental organisation [Oxfam] to be supporting something that's supporting a political cause… there's something that feels not right about that to me.'

The conversation stopped there, and in the article, the interviewer draws comparisons between the film, Under The Skin, and the situation she's in, adding: 'There's even a masked man on a motorbike who goes around scooping up the bodies. I should know – one of them escorts me from the room.'

Wow. Scarlett must really love home-made fizzy drinks.

Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson

Picture: Getty

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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