Two-time Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson was only nine when she scored her ‘first real paying acting job’ on a sketch on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
The 36-year-old former child star made her small-screen debut as spelling bee champion Sarah Hughes in a segment taped for the March 15, 1994 episode.
In it, Sarah is lauded despite misspelling every word she attempts including lugubrious, sesquicentennial, and apology.
This exasperates Conan’s loyal sidekick Andy Richter, who receives hisses and boos from the studio audience clearly in on the joke.
‘Hey Sarah, I know what will cheer you up. How would you like to be my sidekick for the rest of the show. Would you like that?’ the 58-year-old talk show host asked.
After the fourth grader gushed she’d ‘love’ to be his sidekick, O’Brien smiled: ‘You’re terrific.’
Scarlett appeared on Conan’s talk shows four more times, including in 2003 when she reminisced about her ’embarrassing piece of acting.’
‘I remember this big redheaded man,’ Johansson recalled.
‘And I remember Andy, after the show, he was just thrilled that I was his biggest fan at the time. He gave me his signed picture and I still have it.’
The native New Yorker’s first professional acting gig was, age eight, in Playwrights Horizons’ stage production of Sophistry at the Studio Theater in 1993.
Nicholas Martin’s off-Broadway play also starred Ethan Hawke, Calista Flockhart, Anthony Rapp, and Steve Zahn.
Scarlett then scored roles in North, Manny & Lo, The Horse Whisperer, and Ghost World before landing her breakout role in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation in 2003.
Johansson went on to win many trophies including a Tony Award, Independent Spirit Award, honorary César Award, and MTV Generation Award.
On June 29, the 5ft3in bombshell celebrates the 39th birthday of her husband of eight months – SNL head writer Colin Jost – whose memoir A Very Punchable Face drops on July 14.
Scarlett next reprises her role as former KGB assassin Natasha Romanoff in Cate Shortland’s $200M-budget prequel Black Widow, which hits UK theaters July 7 and US theaters July 9.
It’s Johansson’s eighth time portraying Black Widow, but her first solo film in the Marvel Comics Universe.
Black Widow also features Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, William Hurt, and Ray Winstone.
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
