‘I kind of became objectified’ – Hollywood actress, Scarlett Johansson speaks on feeling ‘hypersexualized’ in the early stages of her acting career

Hollywood actress, Scarlett Johansson has spoken out about feeling ‘hypersexualized’ and ‘pigeonholed’ in the early stages of her acting career in Hollywood.

The Black Widow star, 37, appeared on Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, on Monday, where she spoke about how people in the industry saw her as older than what she was, leading to her not getting the roles she wanted.

‘I kind of became objectified and pigeonholed in this way where I felt like I wasn’t getting offers for work for things that I wanted to do. I remember thinking to myself, “I think people think I’m 40 years old,”‘ she revealed.

‘Because I think everybody thought I was older and that I’d been [acting] for a long time, I got kind of pigeonholed into this weird hypersexualized thing,’ the beauty remarked.

‘The runway is not long on that. So it was scary at that time. In a weird way, I was like, “Is this it?”‘ she added.

The actress also admitted that things in the industry is now changing for the better.

‘Now, I see younger actors that are in their 20s. It feels like they’re allowed to be all these different things,’ she expressed.

‘It’s another time, too. We’re not even allowed to really pigeonhole other actors anymore, thankfully, right? People are much more dynamic,’ Johansson added.

The blonde actress started out her career as a child actor but came to prominence when she was 17-years-old, while playing Charlotte in the 2003 Sofia Coppola film, Lost in Translation, alongside Bill Murray (then 52, now 72) for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress.

Johansson was five years younger than her character – a young wife who’s left alone at the Tokyo Park Hyatt by her photographer husband, played by Giovanni Ribisi.

She also went on to play a seductress in the 2005 psychological thriller Match Point, when she was just 19-years-old, starring alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who was 27 at the time.

The film’s controversial director, Woody Allen, 86, later sparked backlash after he referred to her as ‘sexually radioactive’ in his memoir Apropos of Nothing.