Scarlett Johansson
actress / singer
On Motherhood, Superhero Workouts, and Her New Minimalist Beauty Brand
The Black Widow star launches her clean skin-care line today—never mind if she’s famously off social media.
actress / singer
The Black Widow star launches her clean skin-care line today—never mind if she’s famously off social media.
In the late 1990s, when you appeared with Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer, he described your level of maturity as “13 going on 30.” Did that ahead-of-the-curve awareness extend to skin care?
It’s so funny that you brought that up. Right around the time when I made The Horse Whisperer, I was starting to get teenage, like, hormonal acne. And I remember—this really shows you how careful you have to be around what you say to young people—the makeup artist at the time was like, “Whoa, what is that? Like Mount Vesuvius.” He was describing my acne and it made me feel terrible. I did have problem skin for a really long time, well into my 20s. Even before that, starting to wear makeup when I was like eight, nine years old for film, my mom always reminded me to take care of my skin. [No matter the] amount of beauty or lighting or whatever, at the end of the day, coming home and washing your makeup off and seeing your skin, you’re just kind of there with yourself. I’ve been hyper-aware of how that has affected my own self-confidence.
Coming of age in the ’90s, did you experiment with beauty in ways that felt emblematic of the era? Or did you have to play it safe aesthetically because you had auditions?
I was lucky because I would leave to go do a film for a few months, and then the rest of my time I actually had a very normal childhood growing up in the city. I’d hang out with my friends, go out all around. It was felt in some ways easier then—maybe because there were no camera phones and social media, and we could just disappear into the city life. I got my nose pierced and my eyebrow pierced; I liked blue lipstick. I tweezed all my friend’s eyebrows off. I still get chided by them for that. They’re like, “My eyebrows never grew back after eighth grade when you plucked them all out.” I’m like, “Girl, you loved it then.” Now it’s all coming back, which is so crazy, just to see the whole [obsession with] Y2K makeup and hair and fashion. But I think you’re supposed to do all that stuff—you’re a teenager and it’s just an important part of your self-discovery and self expression. I was lucky I didn’t have a crazy stage mom who didn’t let me play in that space.
Which women onscreen were you inspired by early on—for their performances or their sense of self in real life?
I watched a lot of movies from the golden age of Hollywood and was an enormous Judy Garland fan. She was so beautiful and vulnerable, and was such an incredible actor to watch on film. Her performances all felt so emotionally pure and available. And I loved Winona Ryder growing up. I think she similarly had that kind of openness and vulnerability. And, of course, her style was so great off-screen too. She was beautiful in Edward Scissorhands—that’s one of my favorite films—but she was also just such a teenager in it. She’s finding her independence; she’s kind of still a girl, but she’s becoming a young woman. It’s just such a great character.
“I liked blue lipstick. I tweezed all my friend’s eyebrows off.”
You’ve worked with beauty brands in the past. What compelled you to create The Outset?
I worked as an ambassador for brands for a very long time, and [eventually]—because this is a project I’ve been working on for over five years—I just felt like I didn’t want to represent other people’s beauty standards. I’d outgrown that as a person, and I had the confidence to start something that felt true to me. But I didn’t know how to begin; it’s such a completely different industry than what I do in entertainment. I started this deep dive, trying to understand if what I was looking for was also what the consumer was looking for, so it didn’t just feel like I was making something for myself. I knew I didn’t want to license my name. I knew I wanted to start something on my own that was from a seedling. And I knew I wanted to build some kind of community around the brand. It wasn’t until I met my cofounding partner, Kate, that everything started to crystallize.
What feelings does the phrase celebrity beauty bring up for you?
It’s not something you can run away from, you know? The fact is, I have a thriving career in film. I’ve worked for 30 years in that industry, and it’s something I’m really proud of. I would like this brand, of course, to stand on its own because the products are great, and if I can maybe shine the light on them in a way that’s helpful, fantastic. But I also hope that we can build a community that stands outside of just my own name recognition. I don’t need to boost my own ego and have my name and face all over the place, even with The Outset.
“It’s not something you can run away from, you know?”