Actress Scarlett Johansson, popular for playing strong and bold roles, says she was "hyper-sexualised" initially in her career due to the narrative "crafted for me by probably a bunch of dudes in the industry".
During the Actress Roundtable, Johansson, who is being considered as one of the major contenders for the best actress Oscar for her performance in "Marriage Story", said that the opportunities for women of every age to play different types of people has broadened, reports hollywoodreporter.com.
"I feel when I was working in my early 20s and even in my late teens/early 20s, I felt that I sort of got, somehow, typecast. I was very hyper-sexualised," she said.
"Which, I guess, at the time seemed OK to everyone. It was another time. Even though it wasn't a part of my own narrative, it was kind of crafted for me by probably a bunch of dudes in the industry. And I guess that worked then, but it was really difficult for me to try to figure out how to get out of being an ingenue or the other woman, because it was never anything that I had intended," she added.
Being typecast as hyper-sexualised led Johansson to think of pursuing a different career in the industry that would "be more fulfilling 'cause there seemed like there was nowhere to go".
It changed with an opportunity to star on Broadway in Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" in 2009. The actress, who went on to win a Tony Award for her performance, said that the experience "totally reset my whole way of thinking about how I could work and the different kinds of opportunities that could be available to me".
"It's amazing how theatre is limitless. Even though it was terrifying, it was liberating because I actually felt that every night I had the opportunity to change the narrative," she said.
On how her choice of film roles has changed over her career, Johansson said: "It's so different now, the climate is so different now."
