Scarlett Johansson is teaming up with her Marvel family again, but not quite in the way you might expect. No, Black Widow isn't rising from the dead — yet — but in this interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub for Apple TV+'s upcoming rom-com, Fly Me to the Moon, she and costar Channing Tatum sit down to discuss their careers on the other side of the camera.
In Fly Me to the Moon, the stars play two major moving parts of Apollo 11's moon landing. Tatum is NASA's launch director, Cole Davis, whose focus is on getting America safely on the moon, while Johansson plays marketing specialist Kelly Jones, the woman hired to glam up the mission in a way that will gain the nation's support. They're also tasked with creating a convincing "backup" — a fake moon landing — in case anything should go wrong with the real recording.
During this conversation, Johansson and Tatum discuss their roles on the other side of the camera. Both stars have ventured into directing, but their journeys couldn't have been more different. They discuss the highs and lows of filmmaking and whether we can expect more from them in the future. Johansson also talks about what she learned serving as producer for Fly Me to the Moon, as well as discusses her time on set with the incredible cast of Eleanor the Great, including a familiar Marvel face.
The Most Shocking Thing Scarlett Johansson Learned as Producer
COLLIDER: Individual question for you, Scarlett. I believe this is your first time producing. What were some of the surprises you discovered about producing while making this? And what do you do when your lead actor won't come out of his trailer or learn his lines?
SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Wait, which one should I answer first? The difficult actor one? Because that's, like, right on the tip of my tongue. What do you do? You bribe them.
CHANNING TATUM: She makes a great pork butt. She's a great cook.
JOHANSSON: Yes, I did. [Laughs] I was going to say something inappropriate, but I'm not going to say it. I'm not gonna get dragged down into that. You're our last interview, so we're now extra giddy. We’re ripe!
TATUM: [Laughs] We're like, “Whoo! What do you wanna know?”
JOHANSSON: I would say the most surprising thing for me was how expensive it is to shoot in California. I was like, “Oh, it's impossible to shoot in California.” That was a big surprise. But we were fortunate enough to shoot this film in Atlanta, which I know very well because we've done a lot of films there with Marvel, and it was great. It has a wonderful community. But yeah, that was a big shocker to me, the sticker price of shooting in California.
TATUM: Not what you probably imagined your answer to be.
Image via Sony Pictures/Apple Studios
You know what's funny is a lot of people are talking about the lack of production in California, but the truth is there's just a financial benefit to going to where the tax incentives are.
JOHANSSON: 100%.
TATUM: You’d be foolish not to.
JOHANSSON: It makes it impossible, actually. It's an unfortunate reality.
TATUM: I actually think that I had never worked on a movie studio set in my entire career until the Coen Brothers’ movie, [Hail, Caesar!] because that was set there. It was set in the studio. So, that was the very first time that I'd ever shot on a lot.
JOHANSSON: It's very rare now.
TATUM: And that was the only movie, actually, I've ever shot on a lot.
JOHANSSON: It's so rare. Equally, the most recently I've worked there was when it was set in California, so we were shooting there, but it's so rare.
Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum on Directing
Image via Apple Productions.
Channing, you recently directed, Scarlett, you recently directed, and I'm just curious for both of you, do you see directing as something that you are both very passionate about that you want to pursue going forward?
TATUM: I can go pretty quickly because you're in the middle of it. She hasn't had her full process, or metamorphosis yet. I think I might [direct] later in life. I'm not planning to do it right away because my experience [on Dog], it's not that it wasn't a good one, but I don't know if I had the full directing experience. I was in every single frame of the movie.
JOHANSSON: That’s crazy.
TATUM: I never got to even go to the monitor because if, as soon as you watch a scene, you go back and watch it, if you do that all day you just cut your day in half. We already were on 10-hour days because of COVID. We were one of the first movies to get going after COVID, I had a dog, and it was just chaos. If I ever do it again, I won't be in the movie, or if I am [then] a small part. But I just don't know. I'm not sure yet. It wasn't what I thought it was gonna be. I enjoyed it…
Image via Sony Pictures/Apple Studios
JOHANSSON: You had a lot of challenges, though, because it was during COVID, you had an animal as your co-star, you were starring in the movie. What were you thinking? [Laughs]
TATUM: I don't know. It was all stupid. We make all bad decisions. We call our company The Bad Idea Factory. She's in editing, so I'm wondering, are you, like, losing your mind? I remember the first time I saw the string out of our movie. I was like, “Oh, we shouldn't have done this. We didn't know what we were doing. This is a bad idea. Who let us do this?” [Laughs] We didn't know what we were doing.
JOHANSSON: I know. I get that. It definitely is daunting. I'm on the back part of the editing process [for Eleanor the Great], so I'm going into further post-production on it. But I really had a wonderful experience in the physical production. I loved shooting in New York. I had a wonderful, wonderful crew and an incredible cast of actors. I mean, I was working with June Squibb — she's legendary — and Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Hecht. I had an incredible cast. And Erin Kellyman, who’s also part of our Marvel family. She’s an amazing, amazing actor. I loved that part of it. I have to say shooting in New York was awesome. It was so, so fun. I loved it.
