Scarlett Johansson admits it’s ‘intense’ working with Wes Anderson in her first live-action, non-dog role for Asteroid City-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro

Scarlett Johansson has opened up on working with Wes Anderson for the first time in a live-action film (Picture: Daniele Venturelli/WireImage/Pop. 87 Productions/Focis Features)

Scarlett Johansson has given her take on working with filmmaker Wes Anderson for the first time as a live actor on set, calling it ‘intense’ as Anderson creates such a specific environment with his movies.

The pair previously collaborated on 2018 stop-motion animation Isle of Dogs, in which the Marvel star voiced Nutmeg, alongside the likes of Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton and Jeff Goldblum.

In Asteroid City, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday night, she plays actress Midge Campbell, part of a group of individuals that end up visiting the Junior Stargazer convention in the desert town with a population of 87, which is then rocked by an alien visitation.

She told Metro.co.uk and other titles at the film’s press conference in Cannes on Wednesday: ‘It’s intense. It’s funny because of course the world is sort of there, you’re in it. The whole environment is created.

‘This is my only experience of working with Wes as a live actor and not as a dog. But they very much create the whole environment, it’s a physical, tangible, useable space.’

Discussing the big difference between Anderson’s set and others in Hollywood, Johansson pointed out the similarities with theatre, which fits into the film’s slightly confusing play-within-a-TV-show-within-a-movie aspect, as well as how he has managed to cut out ‘downtime’.

She made her debut for Anderson voicing a canine in the star-studded Isle of Dogs (Picture: Fox Searchlight Pictures)

‘In a way it’s kind of more like doing theatre because you have the whole tangible space and it’s not the familiar process of being on a soundstage and going back to your trailer, and all this downtime and all that stuff that just eats up the momentum – which is just part of the process [and] there’s not much you can do about it – but somehow Wes has avoided that.’

The 38-year-old was full of praise for the ‘vibrant’ way of working too, calling it ‘very fulfilling and exciting’.

In Asteroid City, Johansson plays one of the central parts in Midge Campbell (Picture: Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features)

With Jason Schwartzman, Anderson and Tom Hanks (R) at the Asteroid City premiere at Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday night (Picture: Getty)

She is joined in the cast by long-time Anderson collaborator Jason Schwartzman, who made his film debut 25 years ago in Anderson’s Rushmore, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, Jeffrey Wright, Maya Hawke and many others.

Anderson has recently gone viral online (sort of) after a YouTube account started posting trailers entirely generated by AI for films such as Star Wars in his style, sparking a fierce fan debate, while TikTok has also been enjoying a bit of a moment with him too thanks to video craze.

Asteroid City will be released in UK cinemas on June 23.

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