MANILA, Philippines - Portraying strong, unique female characters on the big screen is always a welcome challenge for Scarlett Johansson (photo). So when casting his latest action-thriller Lucy, and writer-director Luc Besson needed to find an actress who could be believable as extremely vulnerable, as well as super-powered, when her exposure to an illicit substance makes her acquire incredible skills, Johansson came to mind.
Producer Virginie Besson-Silla describes the unlikely heroine of the story: “Lucy is an average girl who’s having fun with her friends in Asia, and there’s a lot of partying going on. She’s discovering life, but she’s going to discover it the hard way… and go much further than she would ever expect.”
For the role, Besson and his producer reached out to Johansson, who has starred in intimate films such as Lost in Translation and Her, as well as action blockbusters including Iron Man 2, The Avengers and most recently, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Besson was impressed by the actress’ discipline. “When we first met, Scarlett had read the script and I enjoyed the way she talked about it. She was excited for the right reason, which was the story. At that moment, it was a done deal for me. She was definitely the one.”
Johansson explains that one of her interests in portraying Lucy is based on the fact that the character “is in a transient phase in her life when we find her. She’s figuring out who she is, and she’s feeling like she should probably get her life on track.” The actress was not only attracted to the material, but to Besson’s vision. She notes: “The film poses some complex existential questions. It would have been hard to imagine how the script has evolved because so much of that is Luc’s vision. Anything I could imagine the film to look like, just from reading the descriptions in the script, pales in comparison to the actual life that Luc breathed into this project.”
The actress admits that the most challenging part was to portray Lucy as a relatable character, despite the psychological and physical changes that she’s experiencing: “As the drug kicks in, Lucy gradually loses the ability to empathize and to feel pain. Even though she can delve deeply into someone’s memory and eventually control him physically, she doesn’t have any opinion. She loses her preconceived ideas or judgment about the other person. It was difficult to avoid making my performance flat and monotonous. You have to see the humanity behind her circumstances.”
Now showing in theaters, Lucy is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.