Scarlett Johansson is known for her popular portrayal as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But there was another comic book film Johansson starred in that didn’t have the most flattering outfit.
Scarlett Johansson felt squeamish wearing this costume for her critically panned superhero movie
Before Johansson made her Marvel debut in Iron Man 2, the actor experimented with another comic book movie called The Spirit. The film was based on a 1940s comic strip about a crime fighter, and was adapted to the big screen by Frank Miller.
Miller was mostly known for his contributions to the comic book industry with graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. He offered a bit of assistance on the 2005 film adaptation of his Sin City comic which was directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Miller would later serve as director on The Spirit, a film which he’d also written. The movie starred Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, who was attracted to the film based on Miller’s previous work.
“I really just wanted to work with Frank,” Johansson once told Dark Horizon. “I’m not a real comic book fan. I mean, I never – I used to read Archie and Friends when I was little. And Sam just told me that counts.”
Still, she was a fan of Sin City and 300, which was another film based on one of Miller’s works. But what she had a bit of a problem with was her costume, where she had to wear a Nazi uniform. This was especially an issue given her Jewish heritage.
“Of course I felt squeamish, yeah,” Johansson said. “When I first put it on, it was like – you never think you’re going to wear a swastika armband.”
She also joked that past family members might not have looked too kindly on her Spirit wardrobe.
“Eventually it was like, ‘Oh, my grandfather’s rolling over in his grave right now,’” she quipped.
How Scarlett Johansson got over wearing her ‘Spirit’ costume
Despite her slight reservations towards her outfit, Johansson felt her look in the movie was meant to be comical and ironic.
“I’ve realized that – I mean, all of our costumes are very tongue-in-cheek,” she said. “It was Sam’s idea that the characters would probably give each other a memo of what their theme of the day would be and Frank got into the whole production design of this staff, with these big columns, and ...ers of kind of Nazi memorabilia, and the Adolf Hitler.”
It helped that she wasn’t the only actor on set who had to wear something outrageous. Her co-star Jackson wore a similar get-up.
“I think that Sam Jackson in an SS costume, it’s just absurd. I mean, here you have, like, an African-American guy and a Jewish girl, in an SS costume. For us, it was really part of just the fantasy,” she said.
The Spirit wasn’t too successful, however. The vast majority of critics gave the film negative ratings, scoring a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews. Additionally, it didn’t perform well at the box-office. But fortunately, Johansson found greater success in her other superhero franchise.
How Scarlett Johansson first reacted to her Black Widow costume
Johansson’s Black Widow outfit in the Marvel movies may be less extreme than her get-up in The Spirit. Still, Johansson was a bit apprehensive when the superhero outfit was first presented to her. But it wasn’t a feeling she had towards her new superhero costume for long.
“I knew it was going to be some kind of sexy unitard, because I had researched the character in the comics,” Johansson once said according to Sci-Fi Movie Page. “I’ve never worn anything like that before, so I had a freak-out moment that lasted about half a day, but then I said, ‘Okay, time to suck it up’ and just went full force into getting in shape to wear the costume and perform the physical action so it looked just right.”