Scarlett Johansson revealed on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast (via IndieWire) that her orgasm recordings for the movie “Her” caused Joaquin Phoenix to flee the set. Phoenix stars in the Spike Jonze-directed drama as a man who falls in love with his phone’s operating system, a Siri-like female voice named Samantha, played by Johansson. The two had phone sex, during which Johansson had to record herself faking an orgasm.
“We were trying to finish a scene, and he was going crazy,” Johansson said. “He walked off the set. He needed a break.”
Johansson added, “You never want to hear your own voice again. You definitely don’t want to hear the sound of yourself having an orgasm. You definitely don’t want to hear the sound of yourself having a fake orgasm — oh. It’s disgusting. It’s bizarre.”
Samantha Morton was originally cast as Samantha in “Her,” and the film was shot with her reading her lines on a phone. Johansson replaced Morton in post-production, re-recording all her lines and filming additional scenes with Phoenix. “Her,” released to critical acclaim in December 2013, earned Jonze an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The film was also nominated for Best Picture.
During the same “Armchair Expert” podcast interview, Johansson spoke out about being over-sexualized early in her career. The Oscar-nominated actress said being objectified became so routine that she thought her career was over.
“I was becoming objectified and pigeonholed in this way, and I felt like I wasn’t getting invited to do the things I wanted to do,” Johansson said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I think people think I’m 40.’ Somehow, it wasn’t something that was desirable and something I had to fight against.”
“I think people thought I was older and had been [acting] for a long time, and I was pigeonholed into this weird, hyper-sexual thing,” Johansson continued. “I felt like [my career] was over. Like: this is the kind of career you have, these are the roles you’ve done. And I was like, ‘Is this the end?’”
Johansson will next be seen in Wes Anderson’s first project, the star-studded “Asteroid City,” followed by Kristin Scott Thomas’s “My Mother’s Wedding,” opposite Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham.
