(AP photo)

LOS ANGELES -- Sultry Scarlett Johansson is the Cristina in Woody Allen's sexy new comedy, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

It is already a cause celebre because Johansson shares a passionate kiss with Penelope Cruz and ends up in an on-screen threesome with Cruz and Javier Bardem (rumoured to be Cruz's real-life boyfriend, although they prefer not to talk about their private lives). Johansson plays a restless, risk-taking American who goes on vacation to Spain with her anal best friend Vicky (Rebecca Hall). They fall into Bardem's embrace.

The Spanish romp is Johansson's third go-round with the master of American neuroses, after starring in Allen's stylish thriller Match Point and his whatever-it-was Scoop. She does not, however, believe she is Woody's muse.

"We always get the 'muse' thing," Johansson grouses good-naturedly when Sun Media raises the subject during a group interview. "We always say, 'No, it's not that way, it's not that way.' "

Johansson prefers to be known as a member of Allen's rep company, one of the actors he turns to when the right role comes along. "I think that might be more accurate, yeah. I don't think that Woody sits at home, you know, with a thing of chow mein and a typewriter thinking, 'Like, what is Scarlett doing now? And how can her life sort of inspire this tale?' Certainly not!"

Yet Allen has nothing but praise to throw her way, although he discovered her by accident for Match Point after Kate Winslet dropped out just before shooting. That left the role of the manipulative American temptress vacant. Allen was desperate. Someone suggested Johansson, the former child star from The Horse Whisperer. She had matured into an intriguing young woman and serious actress in Ghost World, Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring. She was also in Home Alone 3 and Eight Legged Freaks but, what the heck, a girl's got to make a living.

"I didn't know Scarlett from a hole in the wall," Allen now says. "I thought she was too young to play the part. She was only 19 years old at the time. I had to get somebody fairly quickly and I knew (by reputation) that Scarlett was a great actress and a beauty. I didn't know if she was really what I had written.

"I hired her and became totally captivated by her. I thought she could simply do anything. She was not only beautiful but also bright, amusing, charming and gifted. I'm very happy to work with her. Whenever there is a part that fits anything she could do, I would always call her and hope that she would be available for it, as I did with (Diane) Keaton for years. I did that with Mia (Farrow), thought she was a wonderful actress, and she never let me down. I think that the same will be true with Scarlett."

With Keaton and Farrow, Allen ended up in complicated romantic relationships. Keaton is still a friend. Farrow is not, obviously, thanks to the scandal after he married her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn (a marriage that endures for the 72-year-old Allen).

With Johansson, the relationship is a mutual admiration friendship. She is engaged to Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds.

Johansson jokes that she understands why Allen would praise her. "I mean, after the monthly

payments, I'm not surprised that he would say that."

Allen and his movies seems to bring out the best in her, on screen and off. Johansson has been known to be prickly or moody. But, today, she is bright-eyed, energetic and friendly. She is also reasonably articulate, despite using "I know" in almost every sentence, plus a few Valley Girl-isms that belie her New York birth and upbringing.

Johansson truly is beautiful, too, as Allen observes. Some actresses shine on screen, as if the camera caresses them like a lover, yet look ordinary in person. Not the 23-year-old Johansson, a blond with a Polish and Danish heritage. She is staggeringly perfect to behold.

Yet she is disarming, too, making herself approachable and casual. For example, she ridicules the buzz about Vicky Cristina Barcelona as a steamy sexcapade movie.

"I mean, it's Woody. The idea of, like, Woody Allen's steamiest film is so ridiculous to me. It's not like it's Bertolucci or something." Allen, Johansson says, is not only sweet with relationships in his movies, he is always "so conservative with that kind of thing."

So conservative, in fact, that there is nothing for people to fuss about, Johansson says. "I think there's a lot of chemistry between the characters, and all of us as actors, and that's where the steaminess comes from because it's not really explicit. I mean, people kissing. I mean, nothing is like crazy about it." Shooting those scenes was even less exciting, Johansson says. "When you're shooting, it's so horribly (she mumbles, perhaps saying unromantic). There's 60 grown men eating salami sandwiches, waiting for when they can get up and watch the game, or whatever. Nobody cares when you're doing it, of course. It's like your day at work and this is part of the story.

"Then, of course, people get wind (of it) and they get excited." Especially because of the kissing scene with her and Cruz. "But, you know, it's ridiculous," Johansson says of the fuss.

When Johansson gets up to leave the room at the end of her interview cycle, Cruz is on her way in. The Spanish beauty takes her American friend in a loving embrace, kissing her cheeks Euro-style. But no lip-to-lip. This is real life.

bruce.kirkland@sunmedia.ca

More Artists