Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Scarlett Johansson, whose little-girl-lost appeal won her a best actress prize at Venice two years ago, proves she is no shrinking violet with her sexy femme fatale role in "The Black Dahlia", set to open this year's festival Wednesday night.
Scarlett's steamy scene with co-star Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma's complex tale of corruption and depravity was the main interest at a post preview news conference here amid an otherwise muted reception from critics.
"It's nice to be considered sexy as a young woman in my prime," she told a journalist who asked if she found sexy scenes, like the frenzied clothes-ripping scene with Hartnett, distracted from her thespian performance.
"It's a sexy scene. Brian wanted it to be aggressive, a kind of exorcism of sorts, and I thought it was appropriate," said the actress who starred in "Match Point" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring" since emerging on the film scene as a 14-year old in "The Horse Whisperer".
"I never think about it being distracting to my performance. I think it goes hand in hand with the part."
Johansson, who won a Best Actress award for Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" here two years ago, plays Kay Lake, a beauty with a sordid past in a love triangle with hard boiled detectives Aaron Eckhart and Hartnett.
"She's not innocent in any way at all," the 22-year-old says of her character. "She's a survivor really. She creates a fantasy for herself in order to wake up each morning and not dwell on her horrible past."
db/jp
AFPEntertainment-Venice-film-people-Johansson
AFP 301256 GMT 08 06
COPYRIGHT 2006 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
